THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


A  Soldier  of  the  Civil  War 


EDWARD  PICKETT 


A  Soldier  of  the 
Civil  War 

BT  A  MEMBER  OF  THE  VIRGINIA 
HISTORICAL  SOCIETT 


A  modern  type  of  the  Chevalier  Bayard  sans  peur  et  sans 
reproche.  .  .  In  all  time  to  come  the  proud  boast,  "  I  am 
descended  from  one  of  Pickett's  men,"  will  be  held  equiva- 
lent to  the  words  in  France  —  ' '  One  of  the  Old  Guard 
which  dies  but  never  surrenders. ' '  —  General  George  B. 
McClellan(U.S.A.). 


A  limited  number  privately  printed  for  the 
Author,  by  The  Burrows  Brothers  Company, 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  1900  &  ^  J  J»  <*  J*  & 


Copyright,  1900 

by 
The  Burrows  Brothers  Co 


-PS 


Illustrations 


GEN.  GEORGE  EDWARD  PICKETT          .         Frontispiece 

From  photograph  taken  shortly  after  the  Civil  War. 

THIRD  DAY  AT  GETTYSBURG  —  PICKETT'S  CHARGE  29 

P5  Essentially,  an  exact  reproduction  of  the  diagram  in  Gen. 

^  Norman  Hall's  official  report. 

JH      "THE   TURNING  POINT"  OF  THE  BATTLE  ON  THE 

RIDGE          .  .  .  .  .41 

Reproduced  from  ibid. 


Preface 

WE  have  received  a  handsomely-bound  copy  of 
a  military  biography  which  is  the  production 
of  a  Southern  writer  and  bears  the  imprint  of  a 
Southern  house.  It  revives  familiar  memories  of 
the  Southern  struggle  for  independence  and  relates 
with  scholarly  exactness,  in  a  clear  and  brilliant 
style,  and  with  no  touch  or  trace  of  partisan  bitter- 
ness or  exaggeration,  the  story  of  a  Southern 
soldier's  life;  the  strange,  eventful  history  of  a 
Confederate  leader  who  in  all  that  he  did  and  all 
that,  lucklessly,  he  tried  to  do,  seemed,  like  the 
Vergilian  hero,  to  be  directed  by  an  inexorable  des- 
tiny and  to  become,  in  spite  of  instinct  and  volition, 
an  unconscious  helper  in  founding  an  Empire* 

greater  than  the  one  he  lost.  "  Every  man,"  says 
alzac,  "takes  the  color  of  his  time."  Of  this 
historic  soldier  it  may  be  said  that  if  he  took  from 
his  surroundings  a  touch  of  contemporary  color, 
he  was  also  moulded  in  no  small  degree  by  forma- 
tive influences  from  the  past.  To  comprehend  the 
conditions  he  was  called  to  confront,  we  must  con- 
sider, in  each  instance,  the  historic  influences  which 
created  the  conditions  he  found  to  exist.  His 
military  career,  splendid  and  inspiring  as  it  was, 
must  be  regarded  as  a  mere  episode  in,  a  vast  and 
comprehensive  movement,  or  migration,  of  a  con- 
quering race.  The  sweeping  and  resistless  advance 
of  a  branch,  or  of  branches,  of  the  great  Teutonic 
stock  across  the  North  American  continent  has  been 
characterized  by  a  modern  writer  —  himself  a  daring 
and  sagacious  explorer  —  as  the  most  dramatic  spec- 
tacle in  the  history  of  man ;  a  march  often  inter- 
rupted, but  never  checked,  by  desperate  struggles 


x  PREFACE 

with  alien  or  aboriginal  races,  by  intercurrent  civil 
conflicts,  and  by  international  rivalries  and  ambi- 
tions which  to  this  day  have  not  ceased  to  disturb 
the  social  and  political  amities  of  a  common  race. 
Very  recently,  as  we  know,  they  have  provisionally 
adjusted  a  diplomatic  difference  over  the  line  of  the 
Chilkat  pass. 

The  movement  of  these  warrior  races  reached  its 
limit  when  it  touched  the  Pacific  slope,  and  the 
closing  incident  of  .that  transcontinental  march  is 
vividly  described  in  the  military  biography  which 
we  are  asked  to  review.  The  American  branch  of 
the  race,  having  completed  its  cycle  of  conquest  and 
colonization,  halted  for  a  moment  on  the  shores  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  then  resumed  the  imperial 
movement,  with  resistless  impetus,  among  the  de- 
crepit civilizations  of  the  East  —  upon  the  islands 
of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  upon  the  shores  of  Manila 
Bay. 

The  salient  and  essential  features  of  the  story 
which  the  faithful  and  accomplished  biographer  has 
told  so  well  we  shall  attempt  to  reproduce  in  the 
compass  of  a  brief  review.  It  is  a  modern  story 
with  the  thrilling  charm  of  old  romance.* 

*  A  Review  of  "  Pickett  and  His  Men."  By  La  Salle  Corbell 
Picket!  (Mrs.  G.  E.  Pickett).  Atlanta,  Ga.  The  Foote  &  Davies 
Company.  The  Review,  of  which  this  is  a  reprint,  was  first 
published  in  November,  1899. 


I 

AT  Warwick  Castle,  in  one  of  the  chambers 
overlooking  the  peaceful  Avon,  there  hangs 
the  portrait  of  a  cavalier  of  the  Cromwellian 
period.  The  countenance  has  a  marked  individu- 
ality, a  certain  patrician  air  of  resolution  and  self- 
restraint,  and  that  settled  cast  of  thought  which  is 
supposed  to  mark  an  excess  of  devotion  to  habits 
of  scholastic  or  scientific  research.  The  features 
are  not  of  Cromwellian  proportions,  but  they  are 
finely  balanced  and  firmly  moulded,  and  in  the 
deep,  dark  eyes  there  is  an  expression  of  calmness 
and  concentration  that  denotes  a  masterful  force  of 
intellect  and  an  abiding  sense  of  power.  Is  it  the 
face  of  a  statesman,  or  of  a  scholar?  of  a  sagacious 
civil  administrator,  or  of  a  prudent  and  sedate 
member  of  the  Privy  Council?  or,  simply,  of  a  coun- 
try gentleman  of  scholarly  tastes  and  quiet  habits 
who  loves  his  country  and  is  loyal  to  the  king? 
Strange  as  it  may  seem  from  the  description,  it  is 
the  portrait  of  a  dashing  cavalier  —  of  the  fiery 
Prince  Rupert,  famous  in  the  annals  of  the  House 
of  Stuart  as  commander  of  the  Royal  Horse,  and 
infamous  during  the  Cromwellian  Protectorate  as  a 
buccaneer  upon  the  Spanish  Main ;  of  varied  and 
proved  capacity  in  public  affairs ;  one  of  the  ablest 
soldiers  that  ever  served  a  despotic  prince,  and  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  and  versatile  savants  of  his 
day.  It  was  the  peculiar  destiny  of  this  reckless 
cavalier,  who  flung  away  a  kingdom  at  Marston 
Moor,  to  give  his  name  to  an  empire  of  which 
the  ambitious  despots  of  his  house  had  never 
dreamed. 

Cromwell  was  in  his  grave  and  the  Stuart  was 
again  on    the   throne;  and    Prince    Rupert,    then 


12  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

absorbed  in  his  studies  at  Paris,  was  selected  as  the 
governor  of  "a  company  of  gentlemen  adven- 
turers," organized  to  exploit  the  resources  of  the 
vast  region  which  pours  its  waters  into  Hudson's 
Bay.  For  nearly  two  hundred  years  this  organiza- 
tion, known  as  the  "Hudson's  Bay  Company," 
bore  the  ineffaceable  stamp  of  its  founders,  and 
pursued  with  inflexible  determination  the  despotic 
methods  of  the  house  from  which  Prince  Rupert 
sprang.  This  chartered  monopoly  was  in  effect  a 
colonial  agency  of  the  British  crown ;  it  was  the 
embodiment  of  the  characteristic  claims  and  preten- 
sions of  the  English  race;  it  embraced  within  its 
imperial  circle  of  administration  a  domain  of  conti- 
nental dimensions  —  one-third  larger  in  territorial 
area  than  the  entire  continent  of  Europe;  and, 
under  the  liberal  charter  granted  by  the  second 
Charles,  it  possessed  exclusive  commercial  rights  in 
that  vast  and  undefined  region  for  all  time,  holding 
it  by  the  same  title  that  an  Englishman  holds  the 
farm  or  the  homestead  that  he  calls  his  own.  It 
was  a  conveyance  of  chartered  rights  almost  without 
parallel  in  the  history  of  the  New  World,  and  this 
privileged  domain  —  this  game  preserve  of  a  char- 
tered monopoly  —  was  as  free  from  trespass  or 
intrusion  as  the  garden  of  an  English  duke.  It 
was  truly  Rupert  s  Land.  The  charter  was  Ru- 
pert's; the  informing  spirit  was  Rupert's;  the 
centralized  and  aggressive  system  was  Rupert's;  and 
every  detail  of  practical  administration  bore  the 
impress  of  Rupert's  iron  hand.  The  company's 
operations  extended  from  ocean  to  ocean ;  from  the 
tide-waters  of  the  Mackenzie  to  the  head-waters  of 
the  Yellowstone  and  the  Mississippi.  Its  powers 
were  ample  and  its  resources  potentially  without 
limit.  Its  factories  were  fortified  posts;  its  agents 
were  ubiquitous  and  innumerable;  its  scouts  were 
sagacious  and  indefatigable ;  its  trappers  and  woods- 
men penetrated  every  nook  that  could  be  reached 
with  the  dog-train,  the  pirogue,  or  the  birch-canoe. 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   IV A R  13 

Its  aggressive  movements  were  as  stealthy  as  a 
Huron's  on  the  warpath;  its  territorial  encroach- 
ments as  noiseless  as  the  footfalls  of  a  wolf  on  the 
snow ;  its  leaders  as  daring,  rapacious,  and  insatiable 
as  the  viking  race  from  which  they  sprang.  "  It 
was  the  very  embodiment,"  says  Barrows,  "of 
Great  Britain  in  America;  a  monopoly  that,  grow- 
ing bolder  and  more  grasping,  became  at  last  conti- 
nental in  sweep,  inexorable  in  spirit,  and  irresistible 
in  power. "  At  this  day  such  a  monopoly  would 
be  characterized  as  a  "  trust, 'J- a  "  Credit  Mobilier  " 
fur  company,  organized  upon  a  semi-military  basis 
and  controlling  half  a  continent  through  an  army  of 
factors,  commissioners,  trappers,  traders,  scouts, 
Indians,  and  mixed-breed  retainers  of  varied  hue. 
Every  energy  of  this  vast  organization  was  directed 
to  the  collection  of  furs.  There  were  military  trad- 
ing stations  by  the  score.  Every  wigwam  was  an 
agency.  Every  redskin  was  a  purveyor  of  peltries 
to  the  imperial  monopoly  established  by  Rupert, 
and  plied  his  vocation  as  collector  through  every 
foot  of  this  vast  dominion  of  forests  and  snows. 
The  boundaries  of  Rupert's  Land  were  practically 
without  limit,  perpetually  expanding  with  the 
monopoly's  desires.  Its  progress  was  that  of  the 
glacier,  moving  without  haste  in  the  darkness  and 
silence  of  an  arctic  world. 

Every  rival  save  one  had  gone  down  under  the 
pressure  of  its  advance.  Speaking  to  American 
senators,  Rufus  Choate  exclaimed:  "Keep  your 
eye  always  open,  like  the  eye  of  your  own  eagle, 
upon  the  Oregon.  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  condi- 
tion of  Empire  as  it  is  of  liberty." 

The  warning  was  not  lost.  When  the  encroach- 
ing monopoly  sought  to  appropriate  the  Territory 
of  Oregon,  it  stood  face  to  face  with  a  republic 
which  had  also  been  peopled  by  men  of  English 
blood.  The  States  were  at  once  aflame.  The 
voice  of  Senator  Benton  thrilled  the  popular  heart. 
It  was  like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet.  "Thirty 


14  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

thousand  rifles,"  he  cried,  "are  wanted  in  the  valley 
of  the  Oregon."  The  wild  spirits  of  the  Western 
frontier  awakened  at  the  call  and  by  armed  coloniza- 
tion kept  the  rapacious  monopoly  at  bay.  Since 
the  days  of  the  Stuarts  it  had  encountered  no  such 
opposition  as  this,  and  the  daring  intruder  paused. 
Even  the  bold  spirit  of  Rupert  would  have  recoiled 
from  another  conflict  with  the  spirit  of  republican- 
ism that  had  swept  over  his  columns  at  Marston 
Moor.  The  fur  monopolist  was  subtle,  as  well  as 
strong  and  bold.  He  again  has  recourse  to  diplo- 
macy, to  the  slippery  methods  of  negotiation  that 
had  served  him  in  the  past;  but  the  crack  of  the 
frontiersman's  rifle  is  heard  in  the  valley  of  the 
Oregon,  and  the  southward  advance  of  the  great 
fur  monopoly  is  forever  stayed;  it  not  only  ceases 
to  advance,  but  it  recoils  —  possibly  for  another 
spring.  Wherever  found,  the  British  colonist  is  a 
desperate  and  formidable  fighter ;  he  has  the  fire  of 
the  Scandinavian,  the  stuboornness  of  the  Saxon, 
and  the  craft  of  the  Celt.  With  the  trait  which 
is  peculiar  to  each,  he  has  the  courage  which  is 
common  to  all. 

At  last  the  Oregon  treaty,  drawn  under  the  eye 
of  the  English  ministry  by  an  English  hand,  was 
proclaimed  by  President  Polk  to  be  the  law,  and 
the  settlement  of  the  vexatious  boundary  question 
was  supposed  to  be  complete.  But  this  was  a  mis- 
take. A  full  decade  of  exasperating  delays  vexed 
the  popular  heart  before  a  commission  could  be  ap- 
pointed to  run  the  lines.  Meantime  it  was  found  that 
the  phraseology  of  one  provision  of  the  treaty  was 
ambiguous  and  inexact.  An  error  in  archipelagic 
geography,  a  —  diplomatic  error  —  had  established 
the  claim  of  "the  Company  "  to  the  possession  of 
the  splendid  island  of  San  Juan.  Lord  Russell  was 
emphatic  and  defiant.  The  treaty  could  not  stand 
except  the  island  of  San  Juan  be  reserved  to  the 
British  crown.  Governor  Douglas  declared  the 
sovereignty  of  the  island  to  be  in  the  crown,  and 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  15 

soundingly  protested  under  hand  and  seal  against 
the  occupation  of  the  island  by  aliens  or  pretenders 
from  abroad.  When  the  island  was  subsequently 
seized  and  occupied  by  American  troops,  the  com- 
manding officer  was  informed  by  a  servant  of  the 
monopoly  that  the  ground  on  which  the  American 
camp  was  pitched  was  the  property  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company.  Having  appropriated  half  the  con- 
tinent, the  company  was  now  about  to  seize  the 
islands  along  the  coast.  The  island  of  San  Juan 
was  included  by  territorial  legislation  in  a  county  of 
the  State  of  Oregon.  The  company  refused  to 
pay  taxes  to  the  State  and  the  Oregon  sheriff  spld 
enough  of  its  property  to  liquidate  the  dues. 
Hence  mutual  recrimination  and  bitter  local  con- 
flicts, trespass,  retaliation,  and  deep-seated  discon- 
tent. The  island,  already  occupied  by  American 
settlers  and  forming  part  of  a  county  of  the  State 
of  Oregon,  was  seized  and  used  by  the  servants  of 
the  company  as  a  sheep-ranch,  and  American  soldiers 
in  actual  possession  for  the  protection  of  American 
citizens  were  coolly  informed  by  a  subordinate  agent 
of  the  company  that  they  "  must  immediately  cease 
to  occupy  the  same."  The  English  premier,— 
Lord  Russell,— Governor  Douglas  of  Vancouver, 
and  the  company's  imperious  servant  were  plainly 
of  one  mind  upon  this  point,  and  it  was  evident 
that  the  day  for  diplomacy  was  past. 

The  officer  in  command  of  the  American  troops 
(a  mere  handful  of  regulars)  was  a  young  captain 
of  infantry  who  had  served  with  distinction  in  the 
brilliant  Mexican  campaign  of  General  Winfield 
Scott,  having  led  a  forlorn  hope  at  the  siege  of 
Chapultepec  and  planted  the  American  colors  on  the 
castle  heights ;  and  among  all  the  officers  of  the 
regular  army  that  had  participated  in  this  advance 
upon  the  Aztec  capital  there  was  none  more  con- 
spicuous for  personal  gallantry  than  George  Edward 
Pickett,  the  young  Virginian  now  selected  by  General 
Harney,  the  commander  of  the  Department  of 


16  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

Oregon,  for  the  military  occupation  and  defense  of 
the  island  of  San  Juan. 

When  the  underling  of  the  company  at  San  Juan 
issued  his  peremptory  notice  to  quit,  a  British 
frigate  of  thirty  guns  was  lying  broadside  to  the 
American  camp.  The  American  commander,  in 
spite  of  a  certain  constitutional  impetuosity  of  tem- 
per, had  learned  to  parley  as  well  as  fight.  With 
the  courtesy  and  self-restraint  which  seemed  to  be 
instinctive  with  the  West  Pointer  of  the  old  school, 
he  quietly  took  his  position,  and  there  he  stayed. 
"  I  do  not  acknowledge,"  he  said  in  response,  "  the 
right  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  to  dictate  my 
course  of  action.  I  am  here  by  virtue  of  an  order 
from  my  government  and  shall  remain  till  recalled 
by  the  same  authority." 

Four  days  after  he  had  been  "warned  off  "  by 
the  agent  of  the  company,  Captain  Pickett  was  sum- 
moned to  appear  before  an  official  of  her  Britannic 
Majesty.  "I  am  here  by  authority, "  he  replied 
courteously,  "and  will  retain  my  position  if  pos- 
sible."  To  a  demand  of  the  English  commander, 
Hornby,  he  said,  "  I  cannot  allow  any  joint 
occupation  until  so  ordered  by  my  commanding 
general."  Three  British  men-of-war  were  lying 
there  to  enforce  the  English  demand. 

"  I  have  one  thousand  men  on  board  the  ships," 
said  Captain  Hornby,  "ready  to  land  to-night." 

"If  you  undertake  it,"  said  Pickett,  "I  will 
fight  you  as  long  as  I  have  a  man." 

"Very  well,'  answered  Hornby,  "I  will  land 
them  at  once." 

"  Give  me  forty-eight  hours,  until  I  can  hear 
from  my  commanding  officer,"  said  Pickett,  "or 
accept  the  responsibility  for  the  bloodshed  that  will 
follow." 

"  Not  one  minute,"  was  the  Englishman's  reply. 

At  once  Pickett  ordered  his  command  (sixty-eight 
men)  to  fall  into  line  on  the  hillside  facing  the 
beach.  "  We'll  make  a  Bunker's  Hill  of  it,  he 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  17 

said  to  his  men,  "and  don't  be  afraid  of  their  big 
guns." 

The  sequel  is  told  by  General  Harney  in  his  re- 
port to  General  Scott.  "  The  senior  officer  of  three 
British  ships  of  war  threatened  to  land  an  over- 
powering force  upon  Captain  Pickett,  who  nobly 
replied  that  whether  they  landed  fifty  or  five  thou- 
sand men,  his  own  conduct  would  not  be  affected 
by  it;  that  he  would  open  fire  and,  if  compelled, 
take  to  the  woods  fighting."  The  British  officer 
was  satisfied  that  Pickett  meant  precisely  what  he 
said  and  indefinitely  postponed  the  execution  of  the 
threat.  The  hand  and  the  will  of  Rupert  were  not 
there;  but  the  spirit  of  Cromwellian  republicanism 
stood  incarnate  and  undaunted  upon  that  island 
shore.  The  "Company"  of  Rupert  had  played 
the  long  drama  of  imperial  aggression  to  a  close. 

On  the  5th  of  August  Governor  Douglas  and 
Captain  Hornby  proposed  to  Captain  Pickett  a 
conference  on  board  a  British  man-of-war.  "  I  have 
the  honor  to  say  in  reply,"  writes  Pickett,  "that  I 
shall  most  cheerfully  meet  you  in  my  camp  at  what- 
ever hour  you  may  designate."  Captain  Hornby 
at  once  responds:  "I  shall  do  myself  the  honor 
of  calling  on  you  at  2  P.  M.,  in  company  with  the 
captains  of  her  Britannic  Majesty's  ships."  This 
conference  was  immediately  followed  by  a  satisfac- 
tory settlement  of  the  San  Juan  affair. 

President  Buchanan,  in  his  third  annual  message, 
says  that  the  chief  object  of  General  Harney 's  order 
to  Pickett  was  to  extend  protection  to  American 
residents  of  the  island  against  oppressive  interfer- 
ence from  the  officers  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany. The  President  also  commends  the  thought- 
fulness  and  discretion  of  the  British  admiral. 

The  news  of  the  threatened  collision  upon  the 
Pacific  coast  stirred  the  national  heart  as  it  had  not 
been  stirred  for  years.  It  was  like  a  declaration  of 
war.  The  name 'of  the  young  Virginian  was  upon 
every  lip,  and  the  fame  of  the  San  Juan  incident 


18  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

flew  swiftly  across  the  sea.  For  a  moment  the 
clamors  of  faction  were  hushed  in  the  national 
councils,  and  there  was  a  lull  in  the  wild  storm  of 
controversy  raging  between  the  slave  states  and  the 
free.  Sedition  for  a  season  ceased  to  ply  its  devil- 
ish trade.  There  were  no  longer  strange  voices  in 
the  air;  no  auguries  of  public  ill  upon  prophetic 
lips;  no  disastrous  portents  in  the  political  sky. 
The  whole  nation  was  rallying  as  one  man  to  the 
support  of  the  lone  soldier  upon  the  Pacific  coast; 
and  many  a  patriot  hoped  that  the  jarring  and  dis- 
cordant states  might  again  be  brought  together  and 
swept  by  a  wave  of  enthusiasm  into  a  war  of  resis- 
tance to  the  territorial  aggressions  of  the  British 
race.  It  has  transpired  in  recent  years  that  not 
only  had  many  patriots  desired  such  a  result,  but 
some,  in  the  interest  of  national  unity,  had  actually 
planned  to  precipitate  a  foreign  war.  The  conspir- 
acy was  the  very  desperation  of  patriotic  impulse, 
the  wildest  excess  of  patriotic  zeal.  "Evil,'  they 
said,  "be  thou  our  good. "  If  war  with  England 
must  come,  let  it  come  at  once.  It  will  at  least 
avert  impending  civil  war.  "For  this  purpose," 
says  General  McClellan,  "Captain  Pickett  volun- 
teered to  risk  his  life."  He  would  gladly  have 
sacrificed  himself  to  save  his  country  from  the  civil 
conflict  which  was  to  immortalize  his  name.  But, 
happily,  the  sacrifice  was  not  required.  However 
reckless,  the  sagacious  Englishman  never  quite 
loses  his  head,  and  where  nothing  is  to  be  accom- 
plished he  has  but  little  stomach  for  a  fight.  "  One 
month  of  war,"  said  Sir  Robert  Peel,  "would  have 
cost  more  than  all  the  land  in  dispute." 

The  island  of  San  Juan  was  afterward  awarded 
to  the  United  States  by  the  Emperor  William  of 
Germany,  and  with  this  award  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  as  a  great  imperial  agency  practically 
ceased  to  exist.  Its  policy  and  methods  were  antago- 
nistic to  the  normal  development  of  civilization  in 
British  America,  and  a  Parliamentary  Commission 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  19 

soon  furnished  ample  proofs  of  the  fact.  The 
propagation  of  beavers  has  since  given  place  to  the 
cultivation  of  wheat.  Witness  the  golden  grain- 
fields  of  Manitoba,  which  once  figured  as  an  irre- 
claimable wilderness  in  the  company's  official 
reports.  Even  Oregon,  said  Governor-General 
Simpson,  was  worthless  for  agricultural  uses. 

$  9ft  $  4 

Events  were  developing  with  startling  rapidity 
in  the  States,  and  Captain  Pickett  soon  passed  to 
another  field  of  service,  upon  another  coast,  under 
another  flag,  and  in  support  of  another  cause. 


II 

WHEN  Virginia  was  swept  into  the  move- 
ment of  secession  ana  proudly  took  her 
position  at  the  head  of  the  column  of 
seceding  states,  it  was  but  natural  that  Captain 
Pickett,  as  a  native  of  Virginia,  should  follow  her 
leading,  and  should  feel  too  that  the  path  of  honor 
and  duty  lay  that  way.  So  far  as  he  was  concerned 
there  was  no  pretense  of  justification  for  the  step 
upon  constitutional  grounds,  although  he  was  per- 
fectly familiar,  by  virtue  of  his  West  Point  training, 
with  the  principles  of  constitutional  interpretation 
laid  down  in  Rawle.  He  simply  said,  "  Proud  as 
I  am  of  the  great  name  of  American  citizen,  I  can- 
not raise  my  arm  against  my  own  kith  and  kin." 
But  if  fight  they  must,  it  was  his  earnestly  expressed 
hope  that  they  would  fight  under  the  old  flag.  He 
wanted  the  stars  and  stripes  to  float  over  the  armies 
of  the  South. 

In  February,  1862,  General  Pickett  was  assigned 
by  the  Confederate  government  to  the  command  of 
a  Virginian  brigade  of  infantry.  With  characteristic 
promptitude  he  pushed  at  once  to  the  front,  and, 
upon  ground  made  historic  by  the  surrender  of 
Cornwallis,  maintained  unbroken  a  line  of  defense 
against  the  advancing  forces  of  McClellan.  At 
the  battle  of  Williamsburg  his  command  not  only 
checked  the  advance  of  that  magnificent  army,  but 
actually  drove  it  back.  At  Games'  Mill  he  led  the 
assault  which  broke  the  enemy's  line.  The  situa- 
tion, near  sunset,  was  extremely  critical.  "Some- 
thing must  be  done,"  said  Lee  to  Longstreet,  "or 
the  day  is  lost."  The  Federal  line  extended  from 
Chickahominy  to  Cold  Harbor.  The  position  was 
naturally  strong,  and  powerful  batteries  were  planted 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  21 

at  every  dominant  point.  To  save  the  day,  the 
brigades  of  Pickett  and  Anderson  were  ordered  to 
an  assault  upon  the  formidable  line  of  defenses  in 
front.  The  battle  was  raging  furiously ;  the  enemy 
were  holding  their  entrenchments  with  the  tenacity 
of  desperation,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty  guns 
were  hurling  a  destructive  fire  upon  the  column  of 
advance.  But  nothing  could  resist  the  determined 
and  impetuous  fury  of  the  assault.  Pickett,  shot 
from  his  horse,  paused  but  a  moment,  and  pressing 
forward  on  foot  still  led  his  dauntless  brigade,  the 
riderless  horse  following  close,  as  if  the  animal's 
master  still  held  the  rein.  The  charge  was  resist- 
less, and  the  field  was  won.  The  strong  blue  line 
recoils;  the  reserves  give  way;  the  faithful  gunners 
are  swept  from  their  guns ;  the  contested  ground  is 
seized  and  held  by  the  Confederate  column  of 
assault;  McClellan's  disciplined  legions  are  driven 
tumultuously  into  the  Chickahominy  swamps,  and 
Lee  with  his  whole  army  is  in  hot  pursuit.  The 
Federal  commander,  whose  patient  genius  for  war 
was  even  then  preparing  the  way  for  ultimate  suc- 
cess, was  only  saved  from  utter  rout  by  the  roads 
and  bridges  which  he  had  constructed  for  a  victori- 
ous Federal  advance.  Pickett's  and  Anderson's 
brigades  had  not  only  saved  the  day  but  had  shed 
imperishable  glory  upon  the  Confederate  arms. 
The  attack  in  front  was  made  by  these  brigades 
alone. 

General  Pickett's  wound  was  severe  enough  to 
keep  him  from  the  field  for  several  months,  and 
when  he  rejoined  his  brigade,  in  September,  he  was 
still  unable  to  bear  the  pressure  of  a  sleeve.  In 
the  fight  at  Frazier's  Farm,  three  days  after  the 
battle  of  Games'  Mill,  the  general's  brother,  Major 
Charles  Pickett,  was  shot  down  while  carrying  the 
colors  at  the  head  of  the  advancing  brigade.  He 
"wanted  to  be  in  at  the  finish,'  he  said,  and 
he  almost  realized  his  wish.  The  gallant  young 
soldier  was  disabled  for  life. 


Ill 

GENERAL  Pickett  was  assigned  to  the  com- 
mand of  a  division  in  September,  1862, 
and  on  the  loth  of  the  following  month  was 
promoted  to  the  rank  of  major-general.  In  the 
reorganization  of  the  army  which  followed  the  return 
from  the  Maryland  campaign,  the  brigades  of 
Pickett,  Kemper,  and  Jenkins  were  consolidated 
into  a  division,  to  which,  later,  Armistead's  brigade 
was  attached,  and  Major-General  Pickett  was  as- 
signed to  the  permanent  command,  the  division  as 
now  constituted  forming  part  of  Longstreet's  corps. 
Its  first  appearance  upon  the  field  was  at  the  battle 
of  Fredericksburg,  December  13,  1862,  when  -it 
was  held  in  reserve  with  instructions  from  Long- 
street  simply  to  "hold  the  ground  in  defense 
conjointly  with  the  division  of  Hood,  unless  they 
could  see  an  opportunity  to  attack  the  enemy  while 
engaged  with  A.  P.  Hill  on  the  right.  At  the  first 
moment  of  the  break  on  Jackson's  lines  (says  Long- 
street)  Pickett,  eager  to  strike  the  Federal  column 
as  it  advanced  in  the  open  field,  rode  to  Hood  and 
urged  that  the  opportunity  anticipated  was  at  hand, 
but  Hood  "failed  to  see  it  in  time  for  effective 
work."  His  failure  was  a  subject  of  critical  remark 
and  even  reported  in  the  official  accounts.  Hood 
stood  in  high  favor  with  the  authorities  at  Rich- 
mond, and  the  biographer  of  President  Davis  says 
that  he  was  "  the  noblest  contribution  of  the  chivalry 
of  Kentucky  to  the  armies  of  the  South." 

The  division  of  Pickett  was  held  in  reserve, 
therefore,  but  straining  at  the  leash  and  impatient 
for  the  signal  to  advance.  The  gallant  division 
waited  long  —  many  months,  indeed,  but  it  did  not 
wait  in  vain.  The  opportunity  came  at  last. 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  23 

a  The  renowned  legions  of  Longstreet  and  Ewell 
t(the  latter  in  command  of  Jackson's  old  corps) 
•abandoned  their  position  near  Fredericksburg  on 
the  third  day  of  June,  leaving  A.  P.  Hill  on  guard 
along  the  line  of  the  Rappahannock,  watching 
ford  and  ferry  and  vigilantly  confronting  the 
forces  of  the  Federal  commander,  General  Hooker, 
who  has  signally  failed  to  grasp  the  strategic  sig- 
nificance of  the  situation  in  front,  and,  wholly  oblivi- 
ous of  the  campaign  in  progress,  is  meditating  with 
the  solicitude  of  a  true  soldier  upon  the  prospective 
operations  of  General  Lee.  Days  elapse,  and  on 
the  22nd  of  June,  General  Hooker  is  still  in  quest 
of  information  concerning  the  movements  of  his 
great  antagonist,  and  the  electric  wires  are  flashing 
his  notes  of  interrogation  to  every  point.  "  Have 
any  of  the  enemy  s  infantry,"  he  asks  General 
Tyler,  in  command  at  Maryland  Heights, 
"marched  north  from  the  Potomac?"  "Do  they 
continue  to  cross?"  he  asks  again  on  the  follow- 
ing day.  He  is  clearly  not  satisfied  with  the  assur- 
ance given  by  his  chief  of  staff  that  Lee's  movement 
upon  the  Potomac  is  a  mere  cover  for  a  cavalry 
raid;  nor  with  the  scandalous  suggestion  of  Pleas- 
anton  —  a  stout  fighter  —  that  they  are  still  in  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  and  will  remain  there  as  long 
as  they  are  permitted  to  "steal  supplies"  from 
the  adjoining  states.  Still  less  can  he  be  induced 
to  believe  that  the  movement  is  simply  a  wild  dash 
of  Confederate  foragers,  and  that  the  "whole 
population  of  the  country  —  generals  and  all  " — 
are  crazed  with  a  panic  and  "  stricken  with  a  heavy 
stampede. 

When  Tyler  received  Hooker's  telegram  on  the 
22nd,  the  Confederate  camp-fires  were  already  ablaze 
upon  the  banks  of  the  Potomac.  Ewell  boldly 
leading  the  old  Stonewall  corps,  has  crossed  the 
river  and  is  marching  northward  with  Imboden's 
cavalry  on  his  left  wing,  the  cavalry  of  Stuart  on 
his  right,  and  the  first  division  of  A.  P.  Hill's 


24  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

corps  moving  up  rapidly  in  his  rear.  Hooker  may 
have  been  slow  in  his  perceptions,  but  he  was 
prompt  to  act;  when  the  emergency  was  pressing 
none  could  be  more  alert  or  bold.  He  was  a  soldier 
upon  instinct.  His  cavalry  were  "out,"  he  said, 
"  feeling  up  to  the  enemy  and  hard  at  work. "  He 
ordered  Heintzelman  to  seize  the  South  Mountain 
Pass  and  hold  it  at  all  hazards ;  the  first  corps  was 
ordered  to  seize  and  occupy  Crampton's  Pass;  and 
Stand's  command  was  directed  to  move  at  once 
toward  Gettysburg  and  Frederick,  and  "  drive  from 
the  country  every  rebel  in  it." 

On  the  24th  day  of  June  the  chief  engineer  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  (Warren)  submitted  to 
the  Federal  commander  some  cogent  strategic  rea- 
sons for  moving  the  army  immediately  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Harper's  Ferry.  "  It  is  the  straightest 
line  to  reach  Lee's  army,"  he  said,  "and  will 
enable  us  to  paralyze  his  movements  by  striking  his 
flank  and  rear."  In  the  orders  which  Hooker  gave 
he  seems  to  have  adopted  these  views  at  once.  The 
mountain  passes  were  directed  to  be  seized  and  held. 
The  possibility  of  such  a  movement  had  been  antici- 
pated by  Lee.  On  the  I9th  of  June  he  writes  to 
Ewell.  "Longstreet, ' '  he  says,  "  is  maneuvering  to 
detain  Hooker  east  of  the  mountains  until  A.  P. 
Hill  can  come  up  in  support  of  the  Confederate 
advance.  Should  the  enemy  force  a  passage  through 
the  mountains  you  would  be  separated  from  A. 
P.  Hill,  and  it  is  this  separation  of  forces  that 
Longstreet  is  striving  to  prevent."  Not  knowing 
what  force  is  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  having  no 
definite  information  as  to  the  movements  of  General 
Hooker,  the  Confederate  commander  does  not  feel 
that  he  is  in  position  to  advise ;  but  should  Hooker 
be  drawn  across  the  river  by  Ewell' s  advance,  he 
assures  Ewell  that  Longstreet  will  follow  at  once. 
It  is  evident  that  the  strategic  conceptions  of 
Hooker  and  his  chief  of  engineers  were  anticipated 
in  the  reflections  of  General  Lee. 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  25 

The  report  of  Warren  to  Hooker  advising  the 
movement  upon  Harper's  Ferry  was  dated  at 
Stafford  Court-House,  June  24.  Hooker  lost  no 
time  in  moving  upon  the  lines  indicated  in  the 
report  of  his  engineer.  On  the  2Cth  and  26th  of 
June  he  crossed  the  Potomac  at  Edward's  Ferry. 
He  marched  at  once  to  Frederick,  and  arranging  to 
reinforce  Slocum  with  the  troops  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
he  expected  to  push  rapidly  through  the  western 
passes  and  fall  upon  the  flank  and  rear  of  Lee  — 
precisely  as  Lee  had  hypothetically  prognosticated, 
and  as  Warren  had  actually  proposed.  <c  Troops 
from  Harper's  Ferry!  No,"  was  the  peremptory 
response  of  Halleck;  "the  troops  must  not  be 
taken  from  Harper's  Ferry;  the  Maryland  Heights 
must  be  held  as  the  key  to  Maryland."  "But 
why  hold  the  key,"  said  the  injudicious  Hooker, 
"when  the  door  has  been  smashed  in?"  The 
only  response  to  this  felicitous  counter-stroke  was 
the  official  announcement  from  Washington  that 
General  Hooker  had  been  relieved  from  his 
command. 

On  the  day  that  Hooker  was  relieved,  the  2yth 
of  June,  the  vanguard  of  Lee  under  Ewell  moved 
from  Chambersburg  to  Carlisle.  Sixty  thousand 
Confederate  veterans  were  now  upon  Pennsylvanian 
soil,  seeking  a  decisive  conflict  upon  a  Northern 
field  with  the  magnificent  army  which  had  been 
trained  by  the  disciplinary  genius  of  McClellan, 
and  after  many  reverses  was  now  rallying  with 
incredible  swiftness  under  the  leadership  of  the 
intrepid  and  soldierly  Meade. 

It  is  worthy  of  special  remark  that  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  the  new  commander-in-chief  was  an 
incidental  vindication  of  his  gallant  predecessor. 
He  ordered  the  immediate  withdrawal  of  the  ten 
thousand  troops  from  Harper's  Ferry.  They  were 
withdrawn  and  placed  in  active  service  at  once. 
Hooker  was  vindicated;  the  army  was  seasonably 
reinforced;  and  Halleck  was  apparently  justified  in 


26  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

his  estimate  of  the  military  capacity  of  Meade  —  the 
latest  Federal  protagonist  projected  into  the  arena 
of  war. 

The  commands  of  Longstreet  and  Ewell,  as  we 
have  seen,  abandoned  the  line  of  the  Rappahan- 
nock  on  the  3rd  day  of  June. 

On  the  1 8th  of  June,  1863  (a  notable  anniversary 
in  the  annals  of  war),  Lee  with  sixty  thousand  dis- 
ciplined veterans  and  two  hundred  effective  guns 
crossed  the  Potomac  and  swept  northward,  pouring 
a  tide  of  invasion  directly  into  the  heart  of  the  loyal 
states.  The  field  of  conflict  was  transferred  at 
once  to  Northern  soil,  as  yet  untouched  by  the 
hand  of  war.  In  less  than  ten  days  the  Southern 
army  was  threatening  an  advance  upon  the  capital 
of  the  state  —  possibly  upon  the  capital  of  the 
United  States ;  but  wherever  it  went  and  whatever 
it  did,  or  failed  to  do,  this  is  certainly  true,  that 
the  hand  of  the  spoiler  was  stayed  by  a  strong  and 
peremptory  order  from  Lee.  No  retaliation,  he 
said,  no  robbery,  no  spoliation,  outrage  or  waste. 
"We  make  war  only  upon  armed  men."  If  the 
needy  invaders  paid  for  supplies  in  Confederate 
scrip,  it  was  with  the  conscientious  assumption  that 
ultimately  the  discredited  paper  would  be  made 
good  by  Confederate  success. 

Not  the  least,  then,  of  the  glories  of  the  Gettys- 
burg campaign  was  the  famous  General  Order  No. 
73.  It  registers  the  high-water  mark  of  modern 
civilized  war. 

On  the  28th  day  of  June,  General  Lee  issued  an 
order  directing  an  immediate  concentration  of  his 
forces  at  Cashtown,  which  lies  east  of  the  moun- 
tains and  near  the  northern  extremity  of  the  valley 
where  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  was  fought.  At 
the  entrance  of  this  narrow  valley  lies  Gettysburg 
itself  —  a  natural  strategic  center  to  which  all  roads 
seem  to  lead;  and  toward  this  compelling  center 
gathered  the  converging  forces  as  by  the  operation 
of  a  natural  law.  Among  the  roads  radiating  from 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   W 'A R  27 

the  mountain  village  is  a  broad  thoroughfare  lead- 
ing toward  the  northwest.  It  is  the  Chambersburg 
road,  and  it  was  at  or  near  the  town  of  Chambers- 
burg  that  Pickett's  division  was  left  to  guard  the 
trains  and  secure  the  rear.  There  it  remained  until 
the  2nd  day  of  July. 

It  is  told  that  when  this  gallant  division  was 
moving  northward  through  the  prosperous  farming 
regions  of  Southern  Pennsylvania,  they  were 
greeted  at  one  of  the  pretty  villages  in  an  old  Ger- 
man settlement  through  which  they  passed  by  an 
enthusiastic  little  maid,  who  stood  with  the  national 
flag  in  her  hand,  defiantly  waving  it  at  the  advanc- 
ing column  and  flaunting  it  directly  under  the  eyes 
of  the  Confederate  commander  who  was  riding 
ahead.  Instantly  the  Southern  leader  wheeled 
from  the  line,  doffed  his  cap  with  easy  grace,  and 
bowing  to  the  little  patriot,  respectfully  saluted  the 
flag  she  bore.  Turning,  he  lifted  his  hand,  and  as 
the  splendid  column  passed  every  veteran  doffed 
his  cap  in  chivalric  salute  to  the  national  banner 
and  the  heroic  little  maid.  When  afterward  asked 
how  he  could  bring  himself  to  salute  the  enemy's 
flag,  the  Confederate  leader  replied:  <c  No,  not  the 
enemy's  flag;  I  saluted  the  glorious  banner  of  my 
youth,  and  the  heroic  womanhood  in  the  heart  of  a 
young  girl." 

For  two  mortal  days  the  eager  and  impatient 
veterans  of  Pickett  lay  within  a  few  hours'  march 
of  the  battle  that  was  imminent  or  raging  upon  the 
mountain  ridges  to  the  east;  and  it  was  not  until 
the  morning  of  the  2nd  of  July  that  the  division 
which  was  to  become  exceptionally  conspicuous 
upon  that  field  received  orders  from  Gettysburg  to 
join  its  corps.  A  march  of  twenty-four  miles 
under  a  burning  July  sun  brought  Pickett's  divi- 
sion within  three  miles  of  Gettysburg,  where  they 
halted  at  2  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  their  com- 
mander promptly  reporting  their  arrival  to  General 
Lee,  and  asking  but  two  hours'  rest  to  put  them  in 


28  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

thorough  readiness  for  service  in  the  field.  He 
then  rode  at  once  to  meet  Longstreet,  the  com- 
mander of  the  corps  —  noting  the  little  town  of 
Gettysburg  on  the  left  as  he  passed  into  the  valley, 
and  the  two  parallel  ridges  upon  which  the  contend- 
ing armies  were  encamped  —  the  Federal  forces 
upon  "Cemetery"  Ridge  looking  west,  the  Con- 
federates upon  "Seminary"  Ridge  looking  east, 
the  town  of  Gettysburg  lying  between.  He 
found  Longstreet  in  the  midst  of  oattle,  and  greatly 
relieved  by  the  arrival  of  his  Virginian  brigades. 
"  I  always  feel  certain  and  sure,"  said  the  gallant 
old  warrior,  "of  Pickett  and  Picked:' s  men." 
Over  the  ridge  they  rode  thoughtfully  together, 
watching  the  fight  in  front  of  Little  Round  Top, 
and  studying  the  field  for  the  fight  tomorrow. 
Lee  had  achieved,  as  he  said  in  his  report,  "  partial 
successes;"  he  had  gained  some  ground;  the 
enemy  had  suffered  heavy  losses ;  his  own  army  was 
still  formidable  and  well  in  hand ;  and,  with  that  fatal 
contempt  for  a  luckless  and  awkward  adversary 
which  infected  even  the  soul  of  Lee,  the  Confeder- 
ate commander  was  ready  for  another  and  final 
assault  upon  the  following  day.  Everywhere 
throughout  the  army  it  was  understood  that  Pickett 
and  his  splendid  division  would  make  the  assault; 
and  as  early  as  3  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the 
3rd  it  was  under  arms  behind  the  crest  and  form- 
ing a  line  of  battle  facing  Cemetery  Ridge,  a  little 
to  the  left  of  Meade's  center;  Kemper  on  the 
right,  Garnett  on  the  left,  Armistead  directly  in 
the  rear  —  a  division  of  less  than  five  thousand 
men.  When  the  attacking  column  was  complete 
the  division  of  Pettigrew  was  on  the  left  of  Pickett's 
division;  to  the  left  and  rear  of  Pettigrew  were  the 
two  brigades  of  Trimble.  Anderson  and  Wilcox 
were  ordered  to  support  the  column  of  assault. 
The  line  formed,  the  men  were  ordered  to  lie  down 
in  the  deep  grass  and  keep  still.  And  there  they 
lay  until  deep  in  the  shadows  of  the  westering  sun. 


••••I 
••••I 
••••I 


30  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

During  the  struggle  that  was  now  in  progress  for 
the  possession  of  Culp's  Hill,  the  rugged  eminence 
to  the  east  which  formed  the  right  of  Meade's  cres- 
centic  line,  Pickett  stood  with  Longstreet  and  Lee 
on  the  summit  of  Seminary  Ridge,  as  on  the  previ- 
ous day  he  had  stood  with  Longstreet  alone  noting 
the  assault  upon  Little  Round  Top,  the  left  of 
Meade's  compact,  projecting,  curvilinear  front. 
Today  his  own  division  will  deliver  the  assault 
upon  Meade's  center;  and  the  series  of  indepen- 
dent, unsupported,  and  unsuccessful  assaults  upon 
the  Federal  entrenchments  will  be  complete.  The 
scene  before  the  opening  of  the  battle  was  one  of 
idyllic  peace.  The  morning  sun  was  pouring  a 
flood  of  light  into  every  nook  of  the  narrow  valley ; 
the  air  was  beginning  to  shimmer  with  excess  of 
heat,  and  the  almost  vertical  rays  of  sunlight  were 
suffused  with  a  reddish  flame  that  seemed  not  only 
to  smite  but  sear.  The  luxuriance  of  midsummer 
was  crowning  every  summit  and  brightening  every 
slope,  and  the  leafage  of  the  woodlands  was  taking 
a  deeper  and  a  richer  hue.  Cattle  were  browsing 
peacefully  upon  the  shaded  slopes  of  the  eastern 
hills,  or  ruminating  drowsily  in  the  shadows  of  the 
woodland  trees ;  orchards  were  bending  and  aglow 
with  their  burdens  of  summer  fruit;  the  golden 
wheat  fields  were  aflame  with  the  radiance  of  the 
morning  sun;  the  murmurous  life  of  midsummer 
was  in  the  quivering  air;  and,  innocently  oblivious 
of  impending  battle,  flocks  of  migratory  pigeons 
were  circling  over  all.  But  the  three  Confederate 
leaders,  intent  upon  other  thoughts,  were  making 
a  personal  reconnaissance  of  the  situation  in  front  — 
the  long  line  of  lowland,  the  threatening  slope  and 
summit  stretching  toward  the  north,  and  the  em- 
battled hilltops  confronting  their  lines  upon  the 
east  —  a  fine  historic  group  for  a  great  artist  as  they 
sat  upon  their  horses,  like  cavaliers  in  bronze,  their 
erect,  soldierly  figures  rising  boldly  above  the 
summit  of  the  ridge  and  sharply  outlined  against  the 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  31 

morning  sky.  They  gazed  upon  the  scene  with  an 
intentness  that  bespoke  the  interest  that  they  felt; 
and,  if  sagacity  and  experience  in  war  could  reveal 
what  they  sought,  they  might  easily  have  wrested 
the  secrets  of  destiny  from  what  they  saw  in  the 
long  reaches  of  the  valley,  upon  the  rugged  eastern 
slopes,  upon  the  rocky  salients  frowning  like 
bastions  upon  the  projected  line  of  advance,  and 
upon  the  central  convexity  of  the  long  crescentic 
ridge  entrenched  to  the  sky-line  with  batteries  that 
seemed  to  make  it  almost  impregnable  to  assault. 
Between  the  Confederate  line  and  the  proposed 
point  of  attack  were  ridges  and  roads  and  streams, 
a  strong  stone  wall,  post-and-rail  fences,  streaks  of 
swale,  and  low,  steep  hills.  In  the  shadows  of  the 
distant  ridge  were  two  tiers  of  guns,  supported  by 
soldiers  of  unflinching  resolution  and  served  by 
gunners  of  experience  and  skill.  The  reserves  of 
infantry,  the  flower  of  the  Federal  host,  were  in 
double  columns  near  the  crest,  screened  and  pro- 
tected by  the  solid  stone  wall  that  skirts  the  lower 
slope.  The  line  of  advance  was  also  obstructed 
by  a  strong  post-and-rail  fence  in  the  plain  below. 
This  was  the  position  to  be  taken  by  assault,  and 
the  Confederate  leaders  did  not  underrate  the  seri- 
ousness and  magnitude  of  the  attempt.  Longstreet 
had  tested  the  practicability  of  the  assault  the  day 
before.  A  renewal  of  the  attempt  would  require 
close  cooperation  of  the  entire  Confederate  line 
and  a  minimum  force  of  thirty  thousand  men. 
"  The  fifteen  thousand  men,"  he  said,  "who  could 
make  a  successful  assault  over  that  field  had  never 
been  arrayed  for  battle."  But  Lee  was  obstinate, 
and  Pickett  was  confident  of  success.  With  leaders 
and  men  alike,  "strong  battle  was  in  the  air." 

The  Confederate  column  of  assault  lies  in  long, 
silent  ranks  in  the  tall  grass,  and  they  rise  and 
salute  silently  as  the  commanders  pass  in  thought- 
ful review,  honored  and  touched  by  the  homage 
they  receive  and  proud  of  the  source  from  which 


32  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

it  comes.  The  assaulting  column  was  well  chosen 
for  the  work.  The  soldiers  that  composed  it  were 
the  flower  of  the  Virginian  infantry  and  the  pride 
of  the  warlike  Confederacy  whose  flag  they  bore. 
Not  surly  zealots  moulded  into  soldiers  by  the  iron 
discipline  of  Cromwellian  war;  far  less,  swaggering 
and  dissolute  cavaliers  clinging  desperately  to  the 
fortunes  of  a  falling  house.  They  were  neither 
profligates  nor  fanatics;  and  yet  they  had  the  sol- 
dierly virtues  of  both  the  Roundhead  and  the 
Cavalier.  Offspring  of  a  generous  English  breed, 
cradled  in  Christian  homes  and  reared  within  sound 
of  the  church-going  bell;  with  spirits  finely  touched 
by  the  subtle  influences  of  a  Virginian  environment, 
and  inspired  by  ideals  drawn  from  the  highest  tradi- 
tions of  their  race,  it  was  a  thoroughly  disciplined 
host  of  patient,  high-bred,  resolute,  God-fearing 
men,  fighting,  as  they  devoutly  believed,  for  the 
honor,  for  the  rights,  for  the  existence  of  that 
ancient  state  to  which  they  were  as  loyal  as  a  cava- 
lier to  his  king.  The  earliest  escutcheon  of  the  Old 
Dominion  was  quartered  with  the  arms  of  the  Stuart 
dynasty,  but  the  earliest  political  charter  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Virginia  was  charged  with  the 
principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  which  drove 
the  despotic  Stuart  from  his  throne.  In  laying  the 
political  foundations  of  Virginia,  Sir  Edwin  Sandys 
had  placed  a  Genevan  stamp  upon  Church  and 
State;  and,  building  upon  the  lines  of  his  ideal 
commonwealth,  had  trained  its  people  in  a  rigid 
republican  school.*  The  austere  virtues  of  the 
founders  were  transmitted  to  their  children,  and  the 
seasoned  warriors  who  are  standing  upon  the  peril- 
ous edge  of  battle  at  Gettysburg  today  are  typical 
representatives  of  much  that  was  best  in  the  genera- 
tions of  the  past.  They  are  not  the  Janizaries  of 
a  "barbarous  patriciate,  '  as  an  eloquent  Spanish 
statesman  would  have  had  the  world  believe,  but 
the^military  elite  of  a  free  Anglican  commonwealth, 

*  The  Genesis  of  the  United  States:    Dr.  Alexander  Brown. 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  33 

which  even  in  its  cradle  defied  the  malice  and  ma- 
chinations of  a  Spanish  king.  Cromwell  himself 
would  have  been  proud  to  lead  the  men  who  charge 
at  Gettysburg  this  day;  and  when  it  is  told  that 
the  favorite  hymn  of  their  daring  commander  —  of 
the  man  who  had  led  them  through  a  tempest  of 
fire  at  Games'  Mill  —  was  the  familiar  Christian 
lyric,  Guide  me,  O  Thou  Great  Jehovah,  that  old- 
world  hymn  sung  over  cradles  by  generations  of 
Virginian  mothers  —  it  helps  us  to  form  some  con- 
ception of  the  devout  and  trustful  nature  of  this 
indomitable  soldier  of  the  South.  The  simple  lines 
of  that  old  Protestant  hymn  are  touched  with  the 
true  prophetic  fire,  and  its  awful  imagery,  <c  Death 
of  Death  and  Hell's  destruction,"  might  well 
appeal  to  the  imagination  of  the  Virginian  soldier 
who  led  the  charge  on  that  tremendous  day. 

The  men  are,  indeed,  well  chosen  for  the  work, 
and  the  leader  is  worthy  of  the  men ;  and  his  gen- 
erals are  worthy  of  their  chief  —  Garnett,  who 
served  with  Stonewall  Jackson ;  Armistead,  who' 
charged  in  generous  rivalry  with  Pickett  at  Chapul- 
tepec;  and  Kemper,  who  in  the  Seven  Days' 
battles  led  the  old  Longstreet  brigade.  Pickett 
himself  was  finely  and  generously  characterized  by 
McClellan,  the  Federal  commander,  as  "the  incom- 

E  arable   paladin   of   the   far-famed   infantry  of  the 
outh. "      "Give   George   Pickett  an  order, "  said 
a  veteran   Confederate   officer,  "and  he  will  storm 
the  gates  of  hell." 

The  ridge  upon  which  Meade's  lines  were  ex- 
tended may  be  likened  in  its  general  curvilinear 
course  to  the  outline  of  that  familiar  pastoral  imple- 
ment, an  English  shepherd's  crook,  the  Federal 
left  resting  upon  a  knobbed  handle  at  the  Round 
Top  and  the  right  upon  the  terminal  querl  at 
Gulp's  Hill,  that  section  of  the  shaft  between 
Cemetery  Hill,  near  Gettysburg  on  the  north,  and 
the  wooded  heights  of  Round  Top  on  the  south 
representing  Meade's  main  or  west  front  —  looking 


34  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

directly  westward  upon  Seminary  Ridge  and  in 
close  touch  at  the  rear  with  the  Federal  east-front 
at  Gulp's  Hill,  on  the  right.  Near  the  left  center 
of  the  main  or  west-front  is  the  point  selected  by 
Lee  for  the  assault. 

Glancing  eastward  from  the  Confederate  position, 
we  note  that  the  distance  to  be  covered  by  the 
charging  column  is  scarcely  less  than  three-quarters 
of  a  mile ;  the  distance  from  the  Confederate  bat- 
teries to  the  Federal  position  on  Cemetery  Hill  does 
not  exceed  fourteen  hundred  yards ;  the  entire  area 
of  the  field  upon  which  the  drama  unfolds  does 
not  exceed  a  mile  square  —  actually  limiting  the 
space  upon  which  the  column  is  to  be  developed 
and  extended  for  the  charge.  Along  the  crest  of 
the  ledge-like  elevations  at  the  foot  of  Seminary 
Ridge,  corresponding  to  similar  elevations  at  the 
base  of  Cemetery  Ridge,  is  a  line  of  one  hundred 
and  forty-five  Confederate  guns.  Alexander's  bat- 
tery of  seventy-five  guns  is  on  an  elevation  near 
the  Emmitsburg  Road;  Walker's  sixty-three  guns 
are  posted  to  the  left  of  Alexander  on  Seminary 
Ridge.  The  attacking  column  was  ordered  to 
advance  under  cover  of  the  continued  fire  of  these 
guns.  The  batteries  were  in  position  by  10  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  Lee  had  ordered  batteries  to  be 
pushed  forward  with  the  infantry  to  protect  their 
flanks  and  support  their  attacks,  and  Alexander 
held  nine  howitzers  in  reserve,  intending  to  push 
them  ahead  of  Pickett's  line  of  advance  nearly  up 
to  musket-range. 

These  guns  were  removed  just  before  the 
advance  without  his  sanction  or  knowledge ;  other 
guns  were  provided,  but  ammunition  was  scant, 
and  the  assaulting  column  pushed  forward  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  3rd  was  practically  unprotected 
by  guns.  The  Confederate  artillery  for  the  pre- 
liminary assault  on  the  Federal  center  was  in  posi- 
tion on  the  crest  of  a  ridge  nearly  parallel  to  the 
enemy's  line  which  was  formed  on  a  corresponding 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  35 

elevation  on  Cemetery  Ridge,  a  distance  of  nearly 
one  mile.  For  a  distance  of  two  miles,  the  line 
of  Confederate  batteries  "  covered,"  or  commanded 
the  enemy's  western  front  — stretching  from  a  point 
opposite  the  town  of  Gettysburg  to  the  Peach 
Orchard  which  closed  the  view  to  the  left. 
"Never,"  said  the  Federal  Chief  of  Artillery, 
"  had  such  a  sight  been  witnessed  on  this  continent, 
and  rarely,  if  ever,  abroad."  At  i  o'clock  the 
signal-guns  broke  silence  and  the  Confederate  bat- 
teries, which  were  massed  at  the  edge  of  the  woods, 
opened  a  direct,  continuous,  undeviating  fire  upon 
the  entrenched  line  between  the  cemetery  and  the 
right  of  the  Fifth  Corps,  which  was  at  a  distance  of 
several  hundred  yards  from  the  Federal  left  at 
Round  Top.  A  hundred  guns  upon  Cemetery 
Ridge  flashed  back  an  instant  response.  Every 
crest  is  clouded  with  smoke  and  aflame  with  flashes 
of  volcanic  light;  the  hills  and  valleys  are  reverber- 
ant with  the  deep  and  continuous  roar  of  two 
hundred  guns.  A  storm  of  deadly  missiles  fills  ^ 
the  clouded  air,  and  the  low  valley  is  suffocating 
with  the  hot  breath  of  war;  the  shells  from  the 
cemetery  passing  over  the  line  of  artillery,  and 
exploding  as  they  pass  the  reclining  ranks  of  the 
Confederate  infantry,  search  the  sheltering  coverts 
with  destructive  effect.  The  Federal  infantry  on 
Cemetery  Ridge  cling  to  the  shelter  of  the  solid 
stone  wall  near  the  summit;  but  the  space  in  the 
rear  of  the  crest  is  swept  with  deadly  effect  by  the 
fire  of  the  Confederate  guns.  The  Federal  camp 
is  a  scene  of  indescribable  confusion.  The  general 
headquarters  were  a  hopeless  wreck,  the  army  trains 
were  in  wild  retreat,  and  a  horde  of  frantic  camp 
followers  was  rolling  tumultuously  to  the  rear. 
"Never,"  says  the  Federal  General  Walker,  "had 
so  dreadful  a  storm  burst  upon  mortal  men." 
The  Federal  army  closely  massed  upon  a  contracted 
ridge  (a  result  of  the  recent  operations  of  Lee) 
were  in  a  favorable  position  to  test  the  effects  oif 


86  A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

the  convergent  Confederate  fire,  which  only  ceased 
when  the  ammunition  failed,  after  two  hours  "of 
terrific  war.  A  half  hour  of  silence  and  deadly 
suspense  and  the  attacking  column  begins  to  form, 
just  below  the  brow  of  Seminary  Ridge,  in  long 
double  lines  debouching  from  valleys,  ravines,  and 
woody  coverts,  and  falling  rapidly  into  a  formid- 
able column  of  attack,  thirteen  thousand  strong, 
two  separate  lines  of  double  ranks,  formed  one 
hundred  yards  apart;  in  the  center,  Pickett's 
division  (the  veteran  brigades  of  Garnett,  Armi- 
stead,  and  Kemper)  selected  to  deliver  the  assault 
in  front,  the  division  of  Pettigrew  and  Trimble 
supporting  the  advance  upon  the  left;  the  com- 
mand of  Wilcox,  in  columns  of  battalions,  follow- 
ing on  the  right. 

As  Pickett  rode  up  to  Longstreet  for  orders,  a 
courier  advanced  hurriedly  with  a  note.  It  is 
from  Alexander,  the  Chief  of  Artillery.  The 
ammunition  is  failing;  the  situation  is  pressing; 
and  there  is  no  slackening  of  the  enemy's  fire. 
"  If  you  are  coming,"  said  Alexander  to  Pickett, 
"come  at  once."  Pickett  turned  to  Longstreet. 
"General,  shall  I  advance?'  There  was  no 
response,  and,  awaiting  none,  Pickett  said,  "  I  will 
lead  my  division  forward. ' '  And  the  extraordinary 
march  began.  For  once,  at  least,  without  an 
order,  "  he  would  storm  the  gates  of  hell." 

The  veteran  Longstreet,  deeply  moved,  said 
nothing.  He  could  only  bow  assent  to  the  impera- 
tive orders  of  Lee.  Writing  thirty-four  years  after- 
ward, he  still  sees  in  memory  the  gallant  soldier 
as  he  rides  into  battle  on  that  memorable  day, — 
glorious  as  young  Harry  with  his  cuisses  on, —  of 
medium  height,  of  graceful  figure,  of  magnetic 
presence,  and  incomparable  in  all  the  accomplish- 
ments of  war.  Doubtless,  too,  the  veteran  recalls 
another  day,  in  another  land,  and  a  desperate 
assault  under  another  flag,  when  a  young  lieutenant 
seized  the  colors  which  a  wounded  comrade  had 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  37 

dropped,  and  under  a  deadly  fire,  triumphantly 
planted  them  on  the  captured  heights.  The  young 
Lieutenant  was  Pickett,  and  the  wounded  comrade 
Longstreet.  To-day,  too,  when  Longstreet  falters, 
Pickett  seizes  the  drooping  colors  and  bears  them 
in  triumph  to  the  flaming  crest  of  Cemetery  Ridge. 

There  is  a  passing  flutter  along  the  line,  and  the 
magnificent  column  begins  to  move  —  launched 
straight  at  the  Federal  center.  Near  the  middle 
of  Hancock's  line  is  a  clump  of  trees.  This  had 
been  indicated  by  Lee  as  the  objective  point  of 
attack,  and  toward  this  point  the  column  is  now 
moving  as  if  each  soldier  were  a  center  of  resistless 
force.  The  strong  individuality  of  the  Southern 
soldier  is  manifest  at  every  step.  The  tall,  lithe, 
erect  figure;  the  bold,  resolute  air;  the  strong, 
spare,  sinewy  physique;  the  leopard-like  elasticity 
of  frame ;  and  the  calm,  penetrating  intelligence  of 
the  eye  all  bespeak  the  evolution  of  another  type. 
It  is  the  Anglo- Virginian  type  evolved  by  condi- 
tions antedating  the  war.  Sir  Charles  Dilke 
"looked  instinctively  for  baldrick  and  rapier" 
when  he  saw  these  Confederate  veterans  in  the 
piping  times  of  peace. 

As  soon  as  Pickett,  emerging  from  the  woods  on 
the  reverse  slope,  passes  the  crest  of  the  hill,  the  Fed- 
eral batteries  open  fire ;  and  a  strong  continuous 
flight  of  shell,  passing  over  the  line  of  Confed- 
erate batteries,  falls  upon  the  advancing  column  with 
deadly  effect.  As  he  descends  the  eastern  slope 
of  Seminary  Ridge,  the  column  encounters  a  com- 
bined fire  from  Round  Top  on  the  Federal  left 
and  from  the  batteries  directly  in  front.  As  the 
column  passes  the  marshy  tract  in  the  field  below, 
a  line  of  infantry  moves  down  upon  the  left  flank. 
Beyond  this  point  they  encounter  a  destructive 
fire  from  the  Federal  sharp-shooters;  and  this  is 
followed,  as  the  field  opens,  by  a  terrific  fire  of 
musketry  from  the  front,  and  a  deadly  enfilade 
from  the  rifled  guns  on  Round  Top.  Two- 


321102 


38  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

armies  are  watching  with  breathless  interest  every 
step  of  the  awful  march.  From  the  moment  the 
glorious  column  takes  shape  upon  the  wooded  crest 
of  Seminary  Ridge,  until  it  disappears  in  the  lurid 
clouds  of  battle  in  the  east,  not  a  detail  of  the 
magnificent  movement  is  lost.  On,  on  they  come : 
a  double  line  of  skirmishers;  the  line  of  battle  for 
the  charge;  another  line  of  battle  in  reserve. 
Shells  from  the  Federal  batteries  on  Cemetery 
Ridge  drop  destructively  on  the  advancing  column ; 
and,  as  it  descends  the  slope  with  stately,  measured 
tread,  it  is  torn  by  round  shot  plunging  through 
its  ranks;  the  Emmitsburg  road  is  reached,  the 
Federal  skirmishers  fall  back,  the  fire  of  the  Con- 
federate batteries  ceases;  and,  as  the  unwavering 
column  advances,  a  concentrated  fire  is  poured  from 
ridge  and  Round  Top  directly  upon  flank  and 
front.  Half-way  over  the  field  they  halt  in  a 
ravine  to  rest,  and  reform  for  the  final  charge. 
As  it  resumes  the  advance,  a  clear  ringing  order 
of  Pickett,  "Left  oblique,"  changes  the  direction 
of  the  column  from  the  front  to  the  left,  and  at 
once  from  the  batteries  on  Cemetery  Ridge,  a  fire 
from  forty  cannon  is  poured  upon  the  exposed  right 
flank.  It  is  like  the  scythe  of  death.  "  Front 
forward !  ' '  again  comes  a  clear,  trumpet-like  com- 
mand, and  in  an  instant  the  indomitable  column  is 
sweeping  upon  the  center  as  before,  but  now,  in 
the  midst  of  a  concentrated  fire  from  the  Federal 
guns  on  Cemetery  Ridge,  from  the  infantry 
behind  the  Federal  works,  and  from  the  enfilading 
batteries  on  Round  Top,  a  wild,  destructive  storm 
of  round  shot,  shells,  shrapnel,  canister,  and 
grape.  The  slaughter  is  appalling.  Kemper  falls 
desperately  wounded.  Garnett  Keeps  his  head, 
and  raising  his  mighty  voice,  in  vibrant  tones 
steadies  the  shattered  column,  and  cheers  the 
unfaltering  advance.  From  behind  the  stone  wall 
a  withering  fire  of  musketry  is  pouring  into  the 
devoted  column,  which  promptly  responds,  with  a 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  39 

deadly  precision  of  aim.  "Cease  firing,"  cries 
Garnett,  "save  your  strength."  At  once  the 
disciplined  veterans  reload  their  guns  and  shoulder 
arms,  yet  not  for  one  instant  slackening  the  pace 
of  that  triumphant  advance.  The  post-and-rail 
fence  gives  but  a  moment's  pause.  The  entire 
column  glides  over  it  as  lightly  as  a  sportsman 
in  quest  of  game.  On,  on  they  press,  the  move- 
ment quickened  by  the  concentrated  fire  of  a 
hundred  guns.  "  Pickett  moved  among  his  men," 
says  an  eyewitness,  "as  if  he  courted  death  by  his 
reckless  daring."  The  rain  of  deadly  missiles 
never  ceases,  and  the  Federal  parapet  on  the 
heights  is  fringed  with  fire  from  end  to  end.  In 
the  midst  of  the  wild  tempest  beating  from  the 
hilltop,  these  incomparable  soldiers  preserve  their 
company  formation,  and  respond  to  commands  as 
if  upon  parade  or  review,  halting,  aligning, 
reforming  their  thinned  and  bleeding  ranks ;  and, 
at  last,  in  perfect  line,  pressing  steadily  forward, 
Armistead's  brigade  closing  up  in  staunch  support, 
they  suddenly  dash  with  a  wild  cry,  at  a  double- 
quick,  and  under  a  deadly  cross-fire,  upon  guns 
shotted  to  the  muzzle,  and  charged  with  destruction 
for  the  advancing  ranks.  "Here,"  says  General 
Gibbon,  "the  contest  raged  with  almost  unparal- 
leled ferocity  for  nearly  an  hour. ' '  At  point  blank 
range,  the  Federal  commander  with  perfect  delib- 
eration, gives  the  command  to  fire,  and  the  Con- 
federate Tine  seems  "literally  to  melt"  under  the 
crash  of  eighteen  thousand  guns.  But  the  second 
line  moves  steadily  up;  every  gap  in  the  line  of 
attack  is  closed  as  soon  as  made;  the  shattered 
division  sweeps  relentlessly  over  the  fiery  crest; 
the  enemy,  lifted  from  their  feet  by  the  impetuous 
rush,  fall  back  from  their  smoking  guns,  and,  for 
one  inspiring  quarter  of  an  hour,  the  blue  flag  of 
Virginia  is  seen  floating  from  the  summit  of 
Cemetery  Ridge ! 

But  it  was   a  fleeting  triumph.     The  resistless 


40  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

wave  of  battle  which  sweeps  over  the  entrenched 
front  of  the  ridge,  clings  for  an  instant,  as  if 
lapping  the  blood-stained  crest,  and  rapidly  recedes 
when  its  initial  force  is  spent.  The  Federal 
infantry  held  their  position  with  desperate  tenacity, 
and  the  heroic  .gunners  handled  their  batteries  with 
consummate  skill.*  The  Federal  commanders 
divide  the  bloody  honors  of  the  battle  with  the 
leaders  of  the  bold  assault.  Hancock  f  and 
Gibbon  were  wounded  while  personally  directing 
the  defense;  and  Gushing,  from  the  old  Bay  State, 
was  killed  while  pushing  his  last  gun  to  the  front 
and  driving  the  last  canister  into  Armistead's  ad- 
vancing ranks.  Armistead  dies  with  his  hand  rest- 
ing upon  one  of  Cushing's  guns,  and  the  two  heroes 
fall  together,  immortalized  by  their  mutual  an- 
tagonism and  linked  in  an  eternal  embrace. 

For  a  time,  consternation  reigned  in  the  Federal 
camp,  and  organization  was  almost  wholly  lost. 
The  line  of  General  Webb  was  crumpled  up  on  the 
right,  and  many  men  belonging  to  other  commands, 
says  the  Federal  Commander  Hall,  "were  mak- 
ing to  the  rear  as  fast  as  possible,  while  the  enemy 
were  pouring  over  the  rail  fence."  Finding  two 
regiments  of  another  command  on  the  left,  he 
tried  to  move  them  by  the  right  flank  to  the  break  in 
the  line,  but  coming  under  a  hot  fire,  they  crowded 
to  the  slight  shelter  of  the  rail  fence,  refusing  to 
come  out  and  reform.  He  was  then  forced  to 
order  his  own  brigade  back  from  the  line  and  move 

*  Colonel  Andrew  Cowan,  whose  battery  was  with  General 
Webb  on  the  right,  says  in  his  report: 

' '  The  rebel  line  advanced  in  a  most  splendid  manner.  The 
infantry  in  front  of  five  of  my  pieces  and  posted  behind  a  slight 
defense  of  rails,  some  ten  yards  distant,  turned  and  broke,  but 
were  rallied  by  General  Webb  ...  in  a  most  gallant  man- 
ner. It  was  then  I  fired  my  last  charge  of  canister,  many  of  the 
rebels  being  over  the  defenses  and  within  less  than  ten  yards  of 
my  pieces."  They  were  "literally  swept,"  he  says,  from  the 
Federal  front. 

f General  Hancock  says  that  he  was  "wounded  with  a  ten- 
penny  nail,"— an  indication,  he  thought,  that  the  Confederate 
ammunition  was  getting  short. 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 


41 


forward  by  the  flank  under  a  heavy  fire.  "The 
enemy,"  he  says,  "was  rapidly  gaining  a  foot- 
hold; organization  was  mostly  lost;  in  the  con- 
fusion commands  were  useless."  But,  finally,  by 
desperate  efforts,  the  threatened  retreat  was  stayed. 


"THE  TURNING  POINT" 

OF 
THE  BATTLE  ON  THE  RIDGE 


GETTYSBURG 
JULY  94 


(This  diagram  is,  in  its  essential  features,  an  exact  reproduc- 
tion of  the  diagram  in  Gen.  Norman  Hall's  official  report.) 

The  Federal  veterans  rallied  gallantly  on  the 
second  line,  steadily  reformed,  poured  a  destruc-, 
tive  fire  into  the  captured  works,  and  closed  with 
their  daring  assailants  in  a  deadly  hand-to-hand 
fight.  The  invincible  division  of  Pickett  soon 
lapsed  into  a  forlorn  hope.  Generals,  colonels, 
and  officers  of  all  grades  went  down  in  the  unequal 
fight,  and  a  score  of  Confederate  battle-flags  were 
captured  in  a  space  of  one  hundred  yards  square. 
A  mere  remnant  of  the  division  clung  to  the\ 
bloody  ridge.  Wilcox  had  failed  to  support  the 
advance;  Pettigrew's  men  had  fled;  and  Anderson 
only  moved  when  the  assault  had  failed.  Even 
when  Wilcox  moved  forward  (thirty  minutes  after 
Pickett' s  advance)  there  "was  no  longer  anything 
to  support."  The  gallant  Trimble  advancing 
under  a  destructive  cross-fire  in  front  and  on  both 
flanks,  opened  fire  upon  the  enemy  when  in  easy 
range,  drove  the  artillerists  from  their  guns,  and 
only  gave  way  when  the  whole  force  on  his  right 
was  gone.  The  troops  that  wavered  in  the 
advance,  soon  broke  ranks  and  fell  back  in 


42  A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

disorder,  and  at  once  an  overwhelming  force  is 
thrown  upon  Pickett's  flanks  and  front.  The 
time  for  effective  support  was  past;  and.  Long- 
street  ordered  Anderson's  advancing  division  to 
halt.  Stuart's  resolute  and  well-sustained  dash 
upon  Meade's  right  was  almost  lost  sight  of  in  the 
overshadowing  interest  of  Pickett's  charge;  and 
his  repulse  though  decisive,  is  even  now  scarcely 
included  among  the  disasters  of  the  day.  It  was 
neither  helpful  as  a  diversion  nor  seriously  embar- 
rassing as  a  defeat.  But  the  leadership  was  brilliant 
and  the  fighting  superb. 

It  is  said  that  on.  the  third  day  at  Gettysburg 
the  Confederates  lost  sixty  per  cent  of  the  assault- 
ing forces.  But  it  is  hardly  possible  to  give 
arithmetical  expression  to  the  statement  of  an 
irreparable  loss.  It  furnishes  some  conception, 
however,  of  the  desperate  character  of  the  charge 
to  say  that  of  fourteen  field  officers,  but  one 
remained.  The  men  lay  dead  in  heaps.  "  Look- 
ing around  for  his  supports  " — says  a  contempo- 
rary chronicler — "Pickett  found  himself  alone." 
His  gallant  comrades  had  helplessly  fallen  in  an 
unequal  conflict,  and  the  appealing  blasts  of  the 
paladin's  bugle  are  still  echoing  among  the  passes 
of  the  hills.  Who  was  it  that  had  failed  to  respond 
when  honor  and  duty  were  calling  in  this  crisis  of 
a  people's  fate?  This  we  cannot  say;  nor  is  it 
needful  that  we  should  know  that  which  Lee 
declared  should  remain  unknown ;  but  certain  it  is 
that  Pickett's  magnificent  division  —  the  pride  of 
Virginia,  and  the  glory  of  the  South  —  was  hope- 
lessly shattered  in  one  brief  hour.  In  that  im- 
mortal charge  glory  and  disaster  rode  arm  in  arm. 
It  was  a  bloody  repulse  for  the  division  of  Pickett; 
it  was  a  serious  reverse  for  the  army  of  Lee ;  it  was 
an  irretrievable  disaster  for  the  cause  of  the  South. 

Slowly  and  sullenly  the  bleeding  and  tattered 
remnant  of  the  command  retires  from  the  disas- 
trous field;  but  the  sentiment  of  American  citizen- 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  43 

ship  in  its  highest  sense  forbids  us  to  say  that, 
even  for  the  vanquished,  that  day  was  lost.  In 
the  heart  of  the  Confederate  leader  there  was  sor- 
row enough,  but  there  was  none  of  the  bitterness, 
or  the  rancor,  or  the  hopelessness  of  defeat. 
"Would  that  we  had  never  crossed  the  Potomac," 
he  said,  "or  that  our  splendid  army  had  not  been 
fought  in  detail."  Confronted  at  the  opening  of 
the  civil  conflict  by  a  divided  duty,  he  had  met  an 
imperative  demand  and  had  met  it  in  a  manly  and 
resolute  way.  In  a  purely  dramatic  aspect,  his 
career  as  a  soldier  was  now  rounded  and  complete. 
But  he  did  not  exalt  himself.  He  gave  the  true 
measure  of  his  greatness  when  he  said:  "I  have 
done  nothing;  my  men  have  done  it  all."*  If 
mere  eulogy  could  add  to  the  glory  of  Pickett 
and  his  men,  what  can  exceed  in  pathetic  eloquence 
the  simple  speech  of  Lincoln  as  he  stood  at  the 
foot  of  Cemetery  Ridge?  Some  one  had  reverently 
said:  "Think  of  the  men  who  held  these 
heights."  "And  think,"  said  Lincoln,  "of  the 
men  who  stormed  these  heights."  Standing  upon 
the  same  consecrated  spot,  and,  speaking  words 
that  in  solemn  and  impressive  beauty  recall  that 
diviner  discourse  upon  the  Mount,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln declared  that  the  dead  of  Gettysburg  had  not 
died  in  vain  and  that,  under  God,  there  would  be 
"a  new  birth  of  freedom  for  all."  Even  while  he 
spoke,  he  must  have  felt,  as  his  thoughts  recurred 
to  the  past,  how  strange  and  mysterious  had  been 
the  ways  of  Providence  in  the  selection  of  instru- 
ments for  the  work  to  which  he  himself  had  dedi- 
cated his  life.  Scarcely  a  quarter  of  a  century  had 
elapsed,  since  a  young  Virginian  with  an  hereditary 
bent  toward  the  profession  of  arms,  had  been 
appointed  through  the  influence  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
a  friend  of  his  family,  to  the  military  academy  at 

*  An  officer  who  was  on  the  staff  of  General  Rhodes  says  that 
when  he  saw  Pickett  falling  back  from  the  charge,  he  was  walking 
beside  General  Kemper  gently  fanning  the  wounded  brigadier  as 
he  was  carefully  borne  from  the  field. 


44  A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

West  Point.  "You  see,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  writ- 
ing familiarly  to  the  boy,  "  I  should  like  to  have 
a  perfect  soldier  credited  to  dear  old  Illinois." 
And  writing  again,  after  his  admission  to  the 
academy,  Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "The  only  victory 
that  we  can  ever  hope  to  call  complete,  will  be  the 
one  which  proclaims  there  is  not  a  slave  on  God's 
green  earth." 

The  young  cadet  thus  carefully  launched  into  a 
military  career  was  George  Edward  Pickett,  who 
was  then  preparing,  under  the  eye  of  Lincoln  him- 
self, to  enact  a  part  upon  the  stage  of  American 
affairs,  of  which  the  great  Emancipator  little 
dreamed.  With  a  depth  of  affection  that  to  the 
common  mind  passes  all  understanding,  the  heart 
of  the  great  statesman  went  out  to  his  wayward 
protege  to  the  very  end.  The  Southern  Con- 
federacy was  crumbling  under  the  ceaseless  and 
crushing  assaults  of  Grant,  and  the  stupendous 
drama  of  civil  war  was  hastening  rapidly  to  a  close. 
With  the  surrender  of  the  Confederate  capital 
came  the  proclamation  of  peace.  After  the  sur- 
render of  Richmond,  there  stood  one  morning  at 
the  door  of  the  old  Pickett  home,  a  tall,  strong- 
visaged  stranger,  with  careworn  features,  and  a 
kindly  light  in  his  large,  melancholy  eyes.  In 
the  street,  before  the  door,  is  a  carriage  with 
retinue  and  guard.  It  is  apparently  a  visitor  of 
note.  A  servant  responds  to  the  bell,  but  the 
visitor's  inquiry  is  answered  by  a  lady  who  comes  to 
the  door  with  an  infant  in  her  arms.  "  I  am  George 
Pickett's  wife,"  she  said.  "And  I,"  said  the 
stranger  in  a  deep,  sympathetic  voice,  "am  Abra- 
ham Lincoln."  "The  President?"  she  asked. 
"No,"  was  the  prompt  response,  "Abraham 
Lincoln,  George's  old  friend.'  And  then  some 
kindly  words  to  George's  child,  which  touched  the 
mother's  heart.  A  few  days  later,  George  Pickett 
received  the  announcement  of  the  President's 
tragical  and  untimely  death.  The  indomitable 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  45 

spirit  of  the  Confederate  veteran  was  crushed,  and, 
remembering  only  the  Lincoln  he  had  loved,  he 
cried  out  from  his  very  heart,  "My  God!  My 
God!  The  South  has  lost  her  best  friend." 

To  say  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  faultless 
is  merely  to  say  that  he  was  not  divine ;  to  insist 
that  he  was  not  far-sighted  and  sagacious,  is  to 
suggest  that  he  was  divinely  inspired.  If  he  some- 
times erred  in  his  conceptions  of  the  military  situa- 
tion, he  erred  with  men  who  were  presumed  to 
be  masters  in  the  art  of  war.  In  vain  we  look 
among  the  children  of  men  for  infallibility  either  in 
statesmanship  or  the  strategic  art.  Imperial  Caesar 
sometimes  slept.  The  greatest  captains  sometimes 
err.  Nothing  is  more  fickle  than  the  fortune  of 
war.  Nevertheless,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  an 
incomparable  leader  of  men ;  and,  while  McClellan 
and  Grant  could'  direct  more  or  less  successfully 
the  operations  of  a  hundred  thousand  men  in  the 
field,  it  was  Abraham  Lincoln  alone  that  could  hold 
in  hand  the  vast  and  turbulent  electorate  of  eighteen' 
Northern  States.  This  was  the  host,  in  its  more 
dangerous  aspects  a  coalition  of  fanaticism  and  greed, 
which  the  South  was  called  to  confront;  and  it  was 
Lincoln's  consummate  generalship,  happily  for  the 
South,  that  held  these  radical  and  aggressive  ele- 
ments in  check.  From  a  disciplined  army  in  the 
field,  the  populations  of  the  seceding  States  had 
far  less  to  fear,  even  when  its  soldiers  were  embit- 
tered by  disaster  or  inflamed  by  success.  The 
attitude  of  Lincoln  in  the  contest  was  that  of  the 
famous  warrior  whose  sagacious  policy  of  procrasti- 
nation baffled  the  Carthaginian  invader,  flushed 
with  successive  victories  over  the  consular  armies 
of  Rome.  As  it  was  felicitously  said  of  the  one, 
so  most  fitly  it  may  be  said  of  the  other: 

UNUS   HOMO    NOBIS    CUNCTANDO    RESTITUIT    REM. 

Abraham    Lincoln    was,   politically,   the  highest 
embodiment    of    the    ideas,    the    aspirations,    the 


46  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

impulses  of  his  time.  He  was  the  incarnation, 
too,  of  the  sovereign  will  which  made  him  chief. 
Popular  clamors  wearied  his  ear  and  vexed  his 
heart;  but  they  could  not  affect  the  convictions  of 
a  lifetime,  his  profound  sense  of  administrative 
duty,  or  the  settled  policy  of  the  pending  war. 
He  was  leading  the  forces  of  the  loyal  States ;  he 
was  assailing  the  forces  of  the  seceding  States ;  he 
endeavored  to  be  faithful  to  the  fundamental 
interests  of  both.  When  the  end  of  the  Con- 
federacy came,  he  was  standing  as  a  tall,  strong 
pillar  of  support  for  the  broken  and  exhausted 
South;  and  when  he  fell,  the  vanquished  Con- 
federates felt  that  their  cause  was  indeed  lost. 
They  looked  forward  to  the  inauguration  of  his 
successor  with  a  natural  sentiment  of  dread.  This 
sentiment  of  apprehension  was  not  realized  at 
once.  Though  an  iron  policy  of  reconstruction 
was  subsequently  adopted  in  the  subjugated  States, 
they  were  happily  relieved  from  immediate  appre- 
hension by  the  heroic  interposition  of  Grant.  It 
is,  nevertheless,  true  that  at  this  particular  juncture 
"  the  South  had  lost  her  best  friend."  And  many 
a  generous  Southerner  grieved  honestly  for  the 
loss. 

The  echoes  of  that  great  battle  among  the 
Northern  hills  have  long  since  died  away;  thou- 
sands of  heroic  combatants  are  sleeping  their 
eternal  sleep  in  the  peace  of  Pennsylvanian  fields, 
and  the  convictions  which  drove  them  to  conflict 
no  longer  dominate  the  thoughts  of  men,  nor,  in 
an  economic  epoch,  direct  the  policies  of  States; 
but  the  lesson  of  the  battles  that  they  fought  will 
not  be  wholly  lost  so  long  as  the  souls  of  men  are 
thrilled  by  memories  of  the  charge  that  Pickett 
made,  or  are  inspired  by  the  sentiment  of  the 
immortal  words  that  Lincoln  spoke. 


IV 

THE  still  powerful  army  of  Lee  was  now 
moving  southward  —  a  stricken  and  shattered 
host,  but  as  dauntless  and  defiant  in  retreat 
as  in  advance;  with  its  morale  unimpaired,  its 
confidence  in  its  leaders  unabated,  its  military 
prestige  increased.  *'We  failed,  comrades,"  said 
Lee,  "but  it  was  all  my  fault. "  In  anticipation 
of  prospective  dissensions  and  a  possible  war  of 
recrimination  among  his  disaffected  chieftains,  he 
had  requested  General  Pickett  to  suppress,  or  with- 
hold, a  part  of  his  official  report.  Pickett  com- 
plied promptly  and  without  complaint.  He  simply 
lamented  the  wanton  destruction  of  his  gallant 
command  and  the  absence  of  the  two  brigades 
whose  presence  in  the  battle  would  have  absolutely 
assured  success.  Before  leaving  Virginia,  he  had 
said  to  General  Lee  that  he  wanted  a  complete 
division;  since  as  much  would  be  expected  of  a 
weak  division  as  of  a  strong  one.  But,  even  now, 
fresh  from  the  disastrous  field,  there  is  no  diminu- 
tion of  confidence  in  the  intrepid  leader  or  in  his 
staunch  and  splendid  command.  Writing  to 
General  Pickett,  a  few  days  after  the  battle,  General 
Lee  says:  "  I  still  have  the  greatest  confidence  in 
your  division,  and  feel  assured  that,  with  you  at 
its  head,  it  will  be  able  to  accomplish  any  service 
upon  which  it  may  be  placed."  The  subsequent 
history  of  the  division  shows  that  this  was  not 
merely  the  formal  commendation  of  a  military 
order  or  report.  The  applause  of  his  own  com- 
rades was  not  less  grateful  than  the  commendation 
of  Lee.  After  the  battle,  says  Colonel  Fremantle 
(an  English  officer  who  witnessed  the  charge),  the 
plucky  Confederate  cannoneers  were  open  in  their 


48  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

admiration  of  the  advance  of  Pickett's  superb 
division,  and  of  the  skillful  manner  in  which  Pickett 
led  the  assault.  But  there  was  no  applause  more 
generous  than  that  of  the  men  who  repelled  the 
apparently  resistless  advance.  "The  lines  were 
formed,"  said  General  Hancock,  "  with  a  precision 
and  steadiness  that  extorted  the  admiration  of  the 
witnesses  of  that  memorable  scene. "  "  The  enemy 
advanced  magnificently,"  said  General  Hunt, 
"unshaken  by  shot  and  shell."  "  The  march  was 
as  steady,"  said  the  gallant  General  Hays,  "as  if 
impelled  by  machinery."  "  The  perfect  order  and 
steady,  rapid  advance,"  said  Colonel  Hall,  "gave 
the  line  the  appearance  of  being  fearfully  irresist- 
ible."  Many  impulsively  expressed  their  admira- 
tion even  as  they  braced  themselves  against  the 
impending  assault;  and  "Magnificent!'  was  the 
utterance  of  many  warrior-lips  that  closed  and 
spake  no  more.  "Magnificent!'1  is  still  the 
exclamation  of  all  who  read  the  deathless  story  of 
that  day.  The  heroic  Lee,  with  all  his  outward 
calm,  seemed  to  be  profoundly  stirred,  and  hastened 
without  staff  or  other  attendants  to  the  front, 
looking  as  if  he  would  personally  rally  the  broken 
columns  to  a  supreme  and  desperate  defense. 
"No  soldier,"  says  Alexander,  the  bold  artillerist 
who  launched  the  column,  "could  have  looked 
on  at  Pickett's  charge  and  not  burned  to  be  in 
it."  And  what  a  cloud  of  witnesses  hovered  over 
the  scene  —  a  lowering  cloud  charged  with  latent 
fires  and  ready  to  burst  upon  the  field  below.  A 
camp-rumor  had  stirred  the  Confederate  heart, 
and  apparently  settled  the  question  of  supports. 
*  Lee,'  it  was  said,  "was  going  to  send  every  man 
he  had,  upon  that  hill;"  and  every  slope  and  crest 
of  Seminary  Ridge  was  alive  with  expectation  and 
eager  for  the  signal  to  advance.  Unhappily  there 
was  but  little  concert  of  action  in  that  long  strag- 
gling Confederate  line,  and  there  came  no  order  for 
a  general  advance  upon  that  disastrous  day. 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  49 

But  the  failure  —  was  it  the  fault  of  Lee?  Who 
shall  decide  but  Lee  himself,  who  assumed  the 
whole  responsibility  at  once?  And  yet,  even 
Lee's  decision  cannot  stand  against  conclusive 
facts ;  especially  where  the  assumption  of  respon- 
sibility was  determined  in  some  measure  by  a 
generous  desire  to  screen  subordinate  officers  from 
attack,  to  compose  the  susceptibilities  of  some, 
and  to  repress  the  savagely  critical  instincts  of 
others.  His  motive  is  sufficiently  apparent  in  his 
letter  to  General  Pickett.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
it  would  seem  that  Lee  had  done  all  that  he  could 
personally  be  expected  to  do  as  commander  of  a 
veteran  well-disciplined  organization,  to  ensure  the 
success  of  Pickett' s  assault.  Granted  that  Long- 
street's  sound  military  advice,  to  move  by  the 
enemy's  left  flank,  would  have  assured  the  desired 
results,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  failure  to 
support  Pickett  was  attributable  to  any  unsoldierly 
neglect  or  oversight  on  the  part  of  Lee.  The 
general  order  for  attack  was  well  understood;  and 
every  man  in  the  ranks  believed,  and  every  subordi- 
nate officer  knew,  that  under  the  commander's 
order  to  assault,  ample  provision  must  be  made 
for  a  prompt  and  effective  support.  It  is  not  pos- 
sible for  the  greatest  captain  to  supervise  the 
arrangements  or  tactical  details.  A  meddlesome 
disposition  in  the  matter  of  military  administration 
has  been  imputed  as  a  reproach  to  Napoleon  him- 
self; and  in  no  other  army  than  Napoleon's,  it 
has  been  said,  would  a  subordinate  officer  be  held 
justified  for  neglect,  because  of  a  failure  to  receive 
orders  from  his  chief.  An  English  officer  (Fre- 
mantle)  who  carefully  noted,  while  at  Gettysburg, 
the  military  habits  of  Lee  says  it  was  evidently 
his  system  to  arrange  the  plan  thoroughly  with  his 
three  corps  commanders  and  "then  leave  to  them 
the  duty  of  modifying  and  carrying  it  out  to  the 
best  of  their  abilities."  On  the  second  day, 
Fremantle  had  remarked  that  General  Lee  sent 


60  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

but  one  message  and  received  but  one  report.  It 
is  said  that  the  most  remarkable  point  m  Von 
Moltke's  strategic  method  was  the  self-restraint  he 
practiced  in  giving  free  scope  to  his  subordinate 
commanders.  Von  Moltke  might  have  learned  this 
from  Lee ;  if,  indeed,  he  had  not  already  learned 
that  it  is  the  fundamental  maxim  of  modern 
administration  —  select  competent  and  responsible 
agents  and  trust  the  man  that  is  on  the  spot. 

None  understood  better  than  the  sagacious  and 
experienced  chieftains  of  the  South,  the  absolute 
necessity  of  concerted  action  in  that  great  Northern 
campaign.  Nevertheless,  for  an  apparent  lack  of 
that  initiative,  which  is  a  characteristic  mark  of  the 
modern  soldier,  in  all  ranks,  a  momentous  and 
decisive  assault  upon  the  Federal  left  center  was 
allowed  to  fail.  It  is  possible,  too,  that  the  bonds 
of  discipline  were  beginning  to  relax ;  though  many 
thought  that  in  this  matter  Stonewall  Jackson  had 

fiven  the  Confederacy  a  lasting  lesson  in  the  early 
ays  of  the  war.  When  Secretary  Benjamin  sus- 
tained Loring  in  his  insubordination  at  Romney, 
Jackson  resigned  his  position  and  demanded  relief 
from  "duty"  at  once.  But  whatever  the  explana- 
tion, the  fact  remains.  The  pending  campaign  was 
manifestly  lacking  in  concerted  action  and  cohesive 
force.  In  the  attack  upon  the  center  the  Confeder- 
ate commander  applied  the  final  and  conclusive  test. 
It  was  the  last  battle  and  upon  the  last  day  —  the 
Confederate  commander's  last  desperate  play  for 
success.  Lee  was  calm  and  confident ;  Pickett  was 
eager  and  sanguine;  and  the  assault  only  failed  for 
lack  of  timely  support;  lapsing  into  a  spectacular 
butchery  under  the  astonished  eyes  of  the  chival- 
rous legions  of  the  South.  The  gallant  division 
had  done  all  that  human  valor  and  endurance  could 
do ;  it  had  actually  pierced  the  Federal  center,  and 
in  defect  of  promised  support,  had  literally  been 
crushed  by  the  Federal  reserves. 

But    would    it    not    have    been   better,    say   the 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  51 

critics,  to  move  by  the  left  flank,  as  Longstreet 
advised?  No  one  could  be  more  competent  to 
advise  in  such  a  situation  than  the  masterly  lieu- 
tenant of  Lee,  a  soldier  of  almost  matchless 
courage,  sagacity,  and  resource.  He  is  sustained, 
too,  in  his  contention  by  the  accepted  maxims  of 
war;  by  the  circumstances  of  the  situation;  and  by 
the  confessed  apprehensions  of  the  enemy,  as  well 
as  by  the  declared  object  and  scope  of  the  cam- 
paign as  originally  projected  by  Lee.  If  Napoleon 
operated  by  the  flank  in  preference  to  the  front, 
it  is  certainly  no  discredit  to  other  commanders 
to  do  the  same.  But  Napoleon  himself  ruthlessly 
violated  the  academic  maxims  of  war  when  he  suc- 
cessfully launched  Krazinski's  squadron  of  cavalry 
up  the  long  narrow  pass  of  Samosierra  against  an 
almost  impregnable  position  defended  by  powerful 
batteries  and  twelve  thousand  disciplined  men. 
Energy  and  genius,  says  Clausewitz,  will  easily 
"rise  superior  to  the  beggardom  of  rules." 

The  reasons  assigned  by  Longstreet  were  in  a 
sense  unanswerable ;  nor  did  Lee  attempt  to  answer 
them.  As  Longstreet  says,  the  Confederate  com- 
mander "had  fixed  his  heart  upon  the  work,"  and 
the  fighting  instincts  of  every  soldier  sympathize 
with  the  daring  commander  in  this  fixed  intent. 
The  proposed  assault  looked  practicable  to  the 
experienced  eye  of  Lee,  and  proved  to  be  tactically 
successful  even  as  delivered  by  Longstreet' s  reluc- 
tant hand.  The  Virginians  had  done  all  that  they 
were  commanded  to  do ;  they  had  captured  the 
enemy's  works.  That  they  could  hold  the  works 
against  an  entrenched  force  of  thrice  their  strength, 
the  most  sanguine  had  not  ventured  to  predict. 
If  Pickett  could  have  stayed  where  he  planted  his 
flag,  Lee  would  have  completely  realized  the 
object  of  the  assault;  he  would  have  had  full  com- 
mand of  the  elevated  ground  beyond  the  point  of 
attack,  and  with  abundance  of  ammunition  for  the 
artillery,  the  position  would  have  become  the  point 


52 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 


for  a  still  more  successful  advance.  The  important 
point  "beyond"  was  Gulp's  Hill,  where  rested 
the  Federal  right.  It  was  one  of  the  characteristic 
miscalculations  of  this  campaign  that  E  wall's 
assault  upon  that  position  should  cease,  before 
Pickett's  assault  upon  the  center  began.  But,  if 
we  may  credit  the  observations  or  Fremantle, 
General  Lee  was  certainly  not  accountable  for  a 
tactical  contretemps  so  disconcerting  as  this. 
Doubtless  the  most  judicious  military  critics  will 
agree  that  the  worst  that  can  be  said  of  the  great 
Virginian  leader,  is  simply  this,  that  he  had  been 
made  over-confident  by  the  loyalty,  the  energy, 
and  the  skill  of  his  generals ;  by  the  incomparable 
fighting  capacity  of  his  men;  and,  as  the  Con- 
federate commander,  by  an  almost  unbroken  career 
of  military  success.  While  the  result  did  not  fully 
realize  his  reasonable  expectations,  it  cannot  be 
affirmed  that  in  a  strict  military  sense  it  discredited 
his  judgment  or  skill.  General  Hunt,  the  com- 
mander of  the  Federal  artillery,  pays  tribute  to  the 
generalship  of  the  Confederate  leader  when  he  says 
that  the  Confederates  "  were  almost  always  stronger 
at  the  points  of  contact."  It  was  precisely  here, 
however,  that  Pickett's  assault  had  failed.  The 
assaulting  column  was  not  strong  enough  at  the 
point  of  contact,  and  was  incontinently  crushed  by 
the  reserves,  who,  rallying  on  the  second  line, 
recaptured  the  crest. 

But  in  regard  to  the  great  operations  of  war  there 
can  be  no  one  more  competent  to  speak  with  critical 
authority  (if  he  can  speak  without  prejudice  or 
prepossession)  than  the  man  that  is  competent  to 
conduct  them ;  and  in  such  a  case  at  least  it  would 
be  sheer  effrontery  for  a  subordinate  soldier  or  a 
simple  reviewer  to  dispute  with  the  commander  of 
twenty  legions.  Incontestably,  such  a  critic  was 
Lee  himself.  After  the  repulse  of  Pickett's  divi- 
sion, he  said  in  the  presence  of  the  English  colonel, 
Fremantle:  "All  this  has  been  my  fault."  On 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  53 

the  same  day  he  said  to  the  Confederate  general, 
Imboden,  his  voice  trembling  with  emotion:  "I 
never  saw  troops  behave  more  magnificently  than 
Pickett's  division  of  Virginians  did  today.  Had 
they  been  supported  as  they  were  to  have  been,  but 
for  some  reason  not  yet  fully  explained  to  me 
they  were  not,  we  should  have  held  the  position 
they  so  gloriously  won;"  presently  adding  in  an 
almost  agonized  tone:  "Too  bad!  Too  bad! 
Too  bad!  "  In  the  winter  of  1863  —  64  he  wrote 
to  General  Longstreet:  "Had  I  followed  your 
advice  .  .  .  how  different  all  would  have 
been."  The  adoption  of  Longstreet' s  admirable 
plan  would  certainly  have  ensured  that  perfect 
cooperation,  which,  under  any  plan,  was  essential 
to  success.  In  considering  the  point  in  dispute 
(it  is  only  for  an  inspired  commander  to  decide  it) 
it  must  always  be  remembered  that  the  artillery 
reserved  for  the  advance  that  day  unaccountably 
disappeared  at  the  critical  moment;  that  the  sup- 
plies of  ammunition  for  the  available  artillery  unex- 
pectedly fell  short;  and  that  the  promised  columns 
of  support  were,  practically,  at  the  proper  moment 
for  advance,  disinterested  spectators  of  the  distant 
fight.  The  mere  possibility  of  such  complications 
was  certainly  not  contemplated  in  the  original  plans 
of  Lee.  Neither  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  Con- 
federate leader  could  foresee  the  failure  of  President 
Davis  to  make  a  demonstration  against  Washington 
coincidently  with  the  Confederate  advance  into 
Pennsylvania  under  Lee.  Davis  pleaded  "impos- 
sibility, ' '  and  the  dispatch,  which  was  intercepted  by 
a  Federal  scout,  was  a  positive  inspiration  to  General 
Meade.  It  was  an  assurance  that  no  peril  lurked 
in  the  rear.  Lee's  theory  was  that  even  a  single 
brigade,  with  Beauregard  to  lead  it,  had  been  ample 
force  for  the  end  in  view.  By  a  demonstration 
similar  to  the  one  proposed,  Stonewall  Jackson, 
with  a  single  division,  had  paralyzed  the  move- 
ments of  an  army  of  70,000  men  in  1862. 


64  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

The  brilliant  commander  had  staked  everything 
upon  one  bold  throw;  there  was  a  prodigal  expendi- 
ture of  valor,  of  skill,  and  blood,  but  everything 
was  not  lost.  The  great  movement  had  failed 
and  the  tide  of  battle  was  reversed;  but  the  Con- 
federate leader  was  still  in  condition  to  effect  a 
masterly  retreat  and  the  enemy  was  too  badly  crip- 
pled to  venture  a  counter-assault.  "  Our  own  line 
was  in  disorder,"  said  the  brave  commander  of  the 
Federal  artillery,  "and  in  no  condition  to  ad- 
vance." In  darkness  and  storm,  the  Confederate 
forces  silently  withdrew  from  the  field  that  had 
been  made  glorious  by  their  arms.  The  com- 
mander entrenched  a  line  from  Peach  Orchard  to 
Oak  Hill,  covering  the  line  of  retreat,  pushed  his 
long  column  of  prisoners,  and  his  military  impedi- 
menta to  the  front  and  moved  his  army  to  the 
Potomac  by  interior  lines,  compelling  the  Federal 
commander  to  seek  circuitous  routes  through  the 
lower  passes,  if  he  felt  inclined  to  pursue. 


V 

ON  the  return  to  Virginia  the  war  was  renewed 
upon  the  old  lines,  but  with  a  modification 
of  Grant's  favorite  method  of  "attrition." 
Instead  of  flinging  his  disciplined  veterans  in  wild 
assaults  upon  the  Confederate  entrenchments,  the 
Federal  commander  had  resolved  to  drive  the 
enemy  into  the  "open,"  if  possible,  and  "make 
the  work  of  attrition  mutual."  Lee  accepted 
the  challenge  and  arranged  for  an  immediate 
advance  —  placing  the  staunch  and  intrepid  Pickett 
at  one  end  of  the  line,  and  himself  at  the  other. 
The  initial  advance  was  brilliantly  successful. 
Three  divisions  of  the  Fifth  Corps  recoil  under 
the  powerful  assault  of  Lee ;  and  Picket!,  pressing 
his  advance  upon  the  other  flank,  drives  Sheridan 
back  to  Didwiddie  Court-House,  where,  night 
coming  on,  the  battle  rests,  and  Sheridan  appeals 
to  Grant  for  help.  At  midnight  there  is  an  urgent 
dispatch  from  Meade  to  the  commander  of  the 
Fifth  Corps,  "Sheridan  cannot  maintain  himself 
at  Didwiddie  without  reinforcements."  Duly 
warned,  Pickett  falls  back  to  Five  Forks,  where 
he  receives  a  peremptory  order  from  Lee,  "Hold 
Five  Forks  at  all  hazards."  It  was  an  imperative 
order  to  do  an  impossible  thing;  and  Pickett 
habituated  by  years  of  service  to  this  sort  of  work, 
cheerfully  accepted  the  task.  "Hatcher's  Run," 
was  more  defensible,  but  the  order  was  imperative 
to  hold  Five  Forks,  a  low,  flat,  marshy,  wooded 
tract,  softened  by  the  winter  frosts  and  flooded 
by  the  spring  rains;  a  clayey  soil  mixed  with  sand 
upon  which  it  was  difficult  or  impossible  to  impro- 
vise defensive  works  and  where  the  very  artillery 
was  floated  into  position  upon  a  corduroy  roaa 


56  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

actually  laid  under  the  advancing  wheels,  a  notably 
different  terrain  from  the  rocky  slopes  at  Gettys- 
burg. Having  ordered  Sheridan  to  be  reinforced 
by  the  Fifth  Corps,  General  Grant  sends  a  dispatch 
to  Warren:  "  rickett's  division  is  developed  to- 
day along  the  White  Oak  Pond,  its  right  at  Five 
Forks  and  extending  toward  Petersburg."  Here 
Pickett  formed  his  line  of  battle  behind  a  hastily- 
constructed  breastwork,  W.  H.  L.  Lee's  cavalry 
on  the  right  flank,  Fitzhugh  Lee's  cavalry  on  the 
left,  infantry  and  artillery  between ;  in  all  not  more 
than  six  thousand  men,  under  an  imperative  order 
to  hold  the  position  against  thirty-five  thousand 
fresh,  well-fed  infantry  and  cavalry,  supported  by 
heavy  guns.  Pickett's  cavalry,  in  spite  of  express 
orders  to  be  on  the  alert,  had  given  no  notice  of 
the  enemy's  advance.  The  Federal  general,  War- 
ren, remarked  this  apathy  of  the  Confederate 
scouts,  and  attributed  it  to  a  growing  conviction  of 
the  hopelessness  of  their  cause.  The  first  attack 
upon  Pickett's  position  was  along  the  whole  front 
and  upon  the  right  flank,  which  was  quickly 
repulsed;  but  was  immediately  followed  by  an 
overwhelming  assault  on  the  left  and  rear.  Here 
the  gallant  Pegram  fell.  Warren's  infantry  corps 
swept  down  upon  the  left  flank,  while  Sheridan's 
cavalry  was  engaging  the  front  and  right.  The 
effect  was  simply  crushing.  Scarcely  a  trace  of 
organization  could  be  seen.  Like  Dick  Wild- 
blood's  cavaliers,  the  Confederate  fighters  were 
without  front,  flank,  or  rear.  There  was  wild  con- 
fusion ;  but  no  serious  panic  followed  the  surprise. 
The  grand  old  division  amply  sustained  its  well- 
earned  reputation.  Charge  after  charge  was  re- 
pulsed, and  it  might  have  held  on  until  night  had 
not  the  ammunition  failed.  Even  then  they  made 
a  desperate  stand,  fighting  hand  to  hand,  and  at  the 
last,  compelled  a  rally  and  a  stand  on  Corse's  brigade, 
"which  was  still  in  perfect  order  and  had  repelled 
every  assault."  General  Pickett,  as  if  bearing  a 


A   SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  57 

charmed  life,  rode  through  the  whirling  storm  of  bat- 
tle, rallying  and  reforming  the  broken  ranks,  battle- 
flag  in  hand.  His  men  were  singing,  Rally  round 
the  flag)  boys;  rally  once  again^  and  Pickett,  still 
waving  his  flag  of  battle,  joined  in  the  rallying 
song.  Sheridan's  men  rush  tumultuously  over  the 
crumbling  parapet,  and  plunge  into  a  deadly 
hand-to-hand  fight.  The  combatants  were  so 
closely  intermingled  that  for  a  time  (says  General 
Grant)  it  was  almost  a  question  which  one  was 
going  to  demand  the  surrender  of  the  other. 
Though  outnumbered  five  to  one,  the  Confederate 
soldiers  fought  desperately  until  night  fell  upon  the 
disastrous  field,  closing  the  bloody  scenes  of  the  last 
great  battle  of  the  South.  Again  the  Confederate 
commander  stands  alone;  and  again  the  reinforce- 
ments arrive  too  late  to  reinforce  —  even  with  hope. 
The  glorious  leader,  though  the  last  to  leave  the  scene 
of  conflict,  was  not  quite  alone.  As  he  rode  from 
the  ghastly  battle-field,  a  band  of  devoted  followers 
in  slow  retreat,  drew  upon  themselves  the  enemy's 
fire.  They  did  it  to  save  their  commander's  life ! 

<c  It  has  always  seemed  to  me,"  says  General 
Humphreys,  the  Federal  Chief  of  Engineers,  "to 
have  been  a  grave  mistake  to  require  General 
Pickett  to  fight  at  Five  Forks. ' '  He  should  have 
been  placed  where  he  could  be  promptly  reinforced 
from  Lee's  right.  At  Five  Forks  he  was  hope- 
lessly isolated. 

On  the  morning  of  April  2nd,  the  Federal  Sixth 
Corps  broke  the  Confederate  line  of  defense  at  a 
point  southwest  of  Petersburg,  and  A.  P.  Hill  was 
slain.  The  lean,  gray  lines  were  breaking  fast; 
their  gallant  commanders  were  falling  one  by  one ; 
and  the  proud  Confederacy  was  at  last  beginning 
to  crumble  under  the  ponderous  hammer  of  Thor. 

General  Longstreet  says  that  George  E.  Pickett' s 
greatest  battle  was  really  at  Five  Forks.  His 
operations,  he  declares,  were  masterly  and  skillful, 
and,  if  they  had  been  executed  as  he  designed 


68  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

them,  there  might  have  been  no  Appomattox ;  that 
if  any  soldier  could  have  snatched  victory  from 
defeat,  it  was  Pickett,  and  that  it  was  cruel  to 
leave  that  brilliant  and  heroic  leader,  as  at  Gettys- 
burg, without  reinforcements  or  support.  The 
casualty  list  of  the  battle  bears  eloquent  and 
impressive  testimony  to  the  desperate  character  of 
the  defense.  "He  lost  more  men  in  thirty 
minutes,"  says  Longstreet,  "than  we  lost  from 
all  causes,  in  the  recent  Spanish-American  war." 
The  unsupported^veterans  had  been  butchered  in 
a  sort  of  strategic"  battue  in  which  brigades  were 
trapped  and  slaughtered  instead  of  beasts.  There 
followed  a  crashing  echo  of  this  bloody  conflict  at 
Sailor's  Run,  after  which  (as  the  biographer  hap- 
pily remarks)  there  occurred  the  first  reunion  of 
the  Blue  and  the  Gray:  Sheridan's  soldiers  shared 
their  rations  with  Pickett' s  men. 
.;  :,The  military  situation  in  the  South  during  the 
past  three  months  had  become  so  critical  that 
General  Lee  and  President  Davis  urged  the  adop- 
tion of  a  measure  which  had  been  proposed  in 
1862;*  which  had  been  favored  by  General  Pickett 
in  1863;  and  which  had  been  warmly  advocated 
in  the  Confederate  Congress  in  the  winter  of 
1865,  to  wit:  The  emancipation  and  enlistment 
of  tne  slave.  The  proposal  was  peculiarly  offensive 
to  the  non-slaveholding  whites  of  the  South,  and 
the  measure,  as  recommended  by  General  Lee  and 
the  Confederate  Executive,  was  rejected  in  the 
popular  branch.  But  the  necessity  for  some  strong 
and  effective  measure  was  pressing,  and  the  legisla- 
tive body  finally  proposed  to  meet  the  exigency  — 
the  immediate  demand  for  new  armies  —  by  the 
incredible  chinoiserie  of  proclaiming  a  dictator  and 
adopting  a  new  flag. 

*  Vide  Granier  de  Cassagnac's  History  of  the  Working  Classes. 
Translated  by  Benjamin  E.  Green.  Diplomatic  memorandum  by 
Colonel  Pickett,  the  Confederate  Commissioner  to  Mexico,  Feb., 
1862.  Claxton,  Remsen  &  Haffelfinger,  publishers,  Philadelphia, 
1872. 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR  59 

Within  sixty  days  from  that  time  the  broken  and 
dispirited  army  of  Lee  surrendered  to  Grant  at 
Appomattox  Court  House,  Lee  having  less  than 
ten  thousand  effective  soldiers  in  his  ragged  and 
famished  ranks. 

In  summing  up  the  characteristics  of  George  E. 
Pickett  as  a  soldier,  it  may  be  said  that  he  per- 
fectly realized  in  his  brilliant  military  career  the 
Napoleonic  conception  of  un  grand  homme  de 
guerre^  a  phrase  which  Napoleon  sometimes  saw 
fit  to  apply  to  a  marshal  of  the  armies  of  France. 
He  was  in  truth,  "the  perfect  soldier"  which  Lin- 
coln hoped  that  he  might  be;  he  was  the  incom- 
parable soldier  of  Longstreet;  he  was  the  great 
soldier  and  paladin  of  McClellan,  who  generously 
characterized  him  as  "the  best  infantry  soldier 
developed  by  the  war."  There  is  an  old  French 
proverb  which  says  that  a  great  warrior  must  be  a 
sleuth-hound'  in  assault,  a^wolf  in  pursuit,  a  wild 
boar  in  defense;  which  is  merely  a  medieval  way 
of  saying  that  the  true  soldier  is  an  embodiment  of 
all  the  qualities  that  give  success  in  military  opera- 
tions:— -"initiative,"  promptitude,  audacity;  en- 
durance, stubbornness,  inbred  Satanic  grit;  above 
all,  he  must  have  an  infallible  coup  d' ceil,  or  eye 
for  war.  As  Sovoroff's  maxim  puts  it  briefly 
and  characteristically,  "A  correct  eye,  rapidity, 
dash," — the  other  qualities  being  assumed  to 
exist.  In  a  battle,  as  in  a  boxing-match  (to  com- 
pare great  things  with  small),  it  is  the  eye  that 
determines  the  result.  Instinctively,  it  detects 
the  opening,  and,  almost  involuntarily,  it  directs 
the  blow. 

George  E.  Pickett  was  a  soldier  to  the  manner 
born.  "A  military  bent  of  mind  was  hereditary," 
says  his  biographer,  "in  the  Pickett  family." 
The  very  surname,  a'  familiar  variant  of  an  ancient 
Norman;;  form,  attests  the  existence  of  a  certain 
Berserker  quality  in  the  blood;  and  this  combative 
instinct  was  notably  manifest  in  the  Virginian 


60  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

scions  of  the  original  English  stock.*  Thanks  to 
Abraham  Lincoln  the  young  Virginian  received  at 
the  National  Academy  a  training  in  perfect  keep- 
ing with  his  tastes.  In  the  Mexican  campaign  the 
young  soldier  showed  at  once  the  stuff  of  which 
he  was  made.  The  daring  exploit  at  Chapultepec 
was  the  beginning  of  a  brilliant  career.  In  the 
Indian  war  that  followed  he  maintained  the  repu- 
tation he  had  won  in  the  Mexican  campaign ;  and 
added  largely  to  it,  in  the  estimation  of  scholars, 
by  studying  in  the  occasional  lull  of  conflict  the 
dialects  of  the  various  tribes  he  was  called  upon  to 
fight;  and  so  strong  was  the  linguistic  penchant 
that  came  with  his  blood  that  he  actually  translated 
the  Lord's  Prayer  into  the  Indian  tongue,  and 
patiently  impressed  it  upon  Lo's  untutored  mind. 
Nor  meantime  was  he  idle  in  the  field.  He 
actively  participated  in  a  two  years'  campaign  in 
which  fourteen  hundred  regulars  and  two  thousand 
volunteers  effectually  subdued  the  savage  tribes  upon 
the  Pacific  coast,  the  Filipinos  of  their  day.  We 
next  see  him  standing  for  the  imperial  interests  of 
his  country  upon  the  island  of  San  Juan.  His 
seizure  of  that  disputed  territory  was  executed,  as 
McClellan  says,  "by  a  masterly  movement  in  the 
night,"  —anticipating  the  arrival  of  the  British  fleet 
just  forty-eight  hours.  At  "Camp  Pickett,"  a 
fortified  post  on  the  island  of  San  Juan,  he  continued 
in  command  until  the  beginning  of  the  Civil 
War.  We  have  followed  him  through  his  Virginian 
campaigns  and  found  him  everywhere  exhibiting  the 

*The  military  lists,  preserved  at  Washington,  show  that  the 
Picketts  of  Piedmont,  Virginia,  were  fighters  as  far  back  as  the 
"  Old  French  War  "  (  Va.  Mag.  Hist.).  They  fought  in  the  war 
of  the  Revolution;  in  the  war  of  1812;  in  the  war  with  Mexico; 
in  Cuba;  in  the  Civil  War;  and  one  of  the  same  stock,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  uncommonly  willing  to  try  conclusions  with  the 
British  Empire  on  the  island  of  San  Juan.  They  are  known  in 
Virginian  tradition  as  "the  fighting  Picketts  of  Fauquier" 
(Greene's  Historic  Families):  Not  Tybalt's,  however,  nor 
truculent  tavern-brawlers;  but  in  war,  or  peace,  a  grave,  silent 
race  — men  of  reserved  manners,  simple  habits,  pacific  inclina- 
tions, and  quiet  tastes. 


61 


same  high  qualities  for  command.  At  Fair  Oaks, 
a  Confederate  general,  in  undue  haste  ordered  a 
retreat  under  fire.  "Pickett,  the  true  soldier," 
says  Longstreet,  grasping  the  situation  at  once, 
wholly  ignored  the  order,  pressed  the  enemy 
harder,  and  fought  the  apparently  failing  battle  to 
a  brilliant  and  successful  finish.  At  Games'  Mill 
he  signally  defeated  Casey's  division;  at  Fred- 
ericksburg  he  urged  an  assault  upon  Franklin's 
flank,  and  effectively  answered  the  enemy's  fire  at 
the  south  angle  of  Marye's  Hill;  unsupported  by 
the  authorities  at  Richmond,  he  repelled  the  ad- 
vance of  Butler  and  his  30,000  men;  he  recaptured 
the  outer  line  of  breastworks  at  Bermuda  Hundred ; 
he  saved  the  town  of  Petersburg,  "the  citadel  of 
the  Confederacy;"  and  prolonged  the  existence 
of  the  Confederacy  itself.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
Grant  telegraphed  to  Lincoln:  "  Pickett  has  bottled 
up  Butler  at  Bermuda  Hundred."  This  pointed 
telegram  became  at  once  a  popular  epigram.  It 
stung  the  ambitious  warrior  of  Bermuda  Hundred 
to  the  quick.  After  the  war,  Butler  intrigued  to 
try  Pickett  by  a  military  commission  "organized 
to  convict;"  General  Grant  not  only  interposed 
for  the  protection  of  Pickett,  but  offered  him  the 
marshalship  of  the  State  of  Virginia  which  he 
declined.  The  Confederate  veteran  was  "poor 
and  broken,"  but  he  keenly  realized  the  difficulties 
of  Grant's  position  as  well  as  of  his  own.  "You 
cannot  afford  to  do  this,"  said  Pickett,  "and  I 
cannot  afford  to  accept  it  from  you."  "I  can 
afford  to  do  as  I  choose,"  said  the  generous 
Soldier-President.  And  so  it  passed. 

General  McClellan  has  said  that  "  Pickett  was 
the  purest  type  of  the  perfect  soldier;  that  his 
mind  was  large  and  capable,  and  his  courage  of 
that  rare  proof  that  rose  to  the  occasion,  and  his 
genius  for  war  so  marked  that  his  mind  worked 
more  clearly  under  fire  than  even  at  the  mess-table 
or  in  the  merry  bivouac,  where  his  perfect  breeding 


62  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CIVIL   WAR 

as  a  gentleman  made  him  beloved  by  his  friends. 
No  man  of  his  time  was  more  beloved  of  women 
and  of  men." 

There  can  be  no  higher  praise  than  this ;  not  the 
praise  commended  by  the  old  Campanian  bard, — 
laudari  a  laudato  viro, — but  the  applause  of  one 
who,  worthy  of  all  praise,  was  as  fit  to  bestow  as 
to  receive  it.  It  is  no  slight  tribute  to  this  modest 
and  matchless  Soldier  or  the  Civil  War,  that  he 
should  take  captive  the  affections  of  the  men  he 
fought,  and  receive  countless  proofs  of  the  devo- 
tion of  such  admirers  as  Lincoln,  McClellan, 
and  Grant.  In  spite  of  military  hardships  that 
would  have  racked  a  frame  of  steel,  and  of  shocks 
in  battle  that  only  a  dauntless  soul  could  endure, 
the  "Bayard  of  the  Confederacy," — the  hero  of 
Chapultepec,  San  Juan,  Games'  Mill,  Gettysburg, 
and  Five  Forks, —  for  a  decade  of  peaceful  and 
honored  years  survived  the  desolating  war  which 
gave  him  a  deathless  name.  The  speech  of  the 
veteran  warrior  in  the  old  tragedy  might  well  have 
fallen  from  this  Southern  soldier's  lips: 

"For  I  have  fought  where  few  alive  remained, 
And  none  unscathed." 


VI 

BEFORE  riding  into  battle  on  the  third  day 
at  Gettysburg,  General  Pickett  hastily  pen- 
ciled a  note  of  farewell  to  a  lovely  Virginian 
girl:  "Good-bye  and  God  bless  you,  little  one!" 
This  note  was  entrusted  to  General  Longstreet, 
who  wrote  upon  the  cover:  "  As  I  watched  him, 
gallant  and  fearless  as  any  knight  of  old,  riding 
to  certain  doom,  I  said  a  prayer  for  his  safety,  and 
made  a  vow  to  the  Holy  Father  that  my  friendship 
for  him,  poor  as  it  is,  should  be  your  heritance." 
A  few  days  after  the  battle  on  Cemetery  Ridge, 
Pickett  wrote  again  to  the  "little  one  "  in  Virginia : 
"We  were  ordered  to  take  a  height.  We  took 
it,  but  under  the  most  withering  fire  that,  even  in 
my  dreams,  I  could  have  conceived  of;  and  I  have 
seen  many  battles.  .  .  .  How  any  of  us 
survived  is  marvelous,  unless  it  was  by  prayer." 
A  few  days  later  he  again  writes:  "1  thank  the 

freat  and  good  God  that  he  has  spared  me  to  come 
ack  and  claim  your  promise." 

This  charming  and  accomplished  Virginian  girl 
lived  to  describe  the  battles  that  Pickett  fought. 
Her  book  is  entitled  "Pickett  and  His  Men." 
It  is  full  of  instruction  and  charm ;  it  reconstructs 
the  period  of  which  it  treats,  and  gives  many 
glimpses  of  that  idyllic  Virginian  life,  which,  even 
in  the  midst  of  war,  was  still  touched  with  the  old 
colonial  grace.  There  is  nothing  careless  or  com- 
monplace in  the  style  and  the  writer  seems  to  be 
especially  solicitous  of  fairness  and  accuracy  in  the 
statement  of  historic  facts.  The  dedication  is 
eloquent  and  touching:  "To  my  Husband  and 
the  Brave  Men  whom  he  led." 


3   1158  00734  3196 


i 
i 


